The place of missionary societies
6. The Doctrine of Adoniram Judson
The Gospel of salvation
Supreme in Judson’s mind was an unwavering belief that all those who die in their sins outside of Christ will suffer eternal misery in hell. He believed that the Gospel clearly preached was the means used by the Holy Spirit to save the elect. He preached repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He freely offered Christ to the unsaved. He believed that the Holy Spirit used reasoning and exhortation to draw sinners to Christ.
Every individual was a candidate for eternal life. Wayland describes Judson’s attitude thus: “His object was to accomplish the most stupendous revolution of which we can conceive in this whole people; it was nothing less than an entire transformation of the moral character of every individual. The means by which this was to be accomplished was very simple. It was the announcement of the message from God to man, attended by the omnipotent Spirit of God.”
He did not look for help by way of wonders, signs, and miracles. The Gospel alone was sufficient. Christ indwelling believers would be the means by which “the Gospel would spread on every side until the temples of Gautama should be deserted, the moral character of men be renewed, and Burma become a kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.”[51]
Judson believed in the power of preaching, and sought to use that primary means to persuade sinners. He was himself a powerful preacher. A missionary who knew him intimately wrote, “I fear that no one at home will be able to do him justice on the point of pulpit eloquence.” A visitor to Burma portrayed the power of Judson’s preaching by describing its effect on the hearers. They were totally absorbed and gripped from first to last by every aspect of the message.[52]
Believer’s baptism and church order
When he gave himself to the study of baptism on the voyage to the East, he began in the Old Testament. He appreciated to the full the crucial importance of the Abrahamic covenant and its relationships to the Mosaic and New Covenants. If, under his ministry, a tribal chief was converted, what, he asked, would this mean for all the members of his family? What would it mean for that clan, for the wives, for the children, and for the servants? Were they all to be baptized just as all the males in the extensive household of Abraham were circumcised? He proceeded to study all that the Scripture declared on this theme. He examined not only doctrinal themes but passages and contexts including 1 Corinthians 7:14 and Acts 2:39. He scrutinized the etymology of the Greek word baptize, and concluded that the word means to immerse. Once convinced, he was prepared to face the consequences, even though it would cost him dearly he would lose all the missionary support which had been so difficult to attain.[53]
When it came to the practice of this doctrine, he would only accept those for baptism who evidenced a credible profession of repentance and faith. The records show that, together with the leaders of the work, he rarely failed in receiving into membership true converts. He kept back those who were not ready. He maintained consistent church discipline, allowing back into the assembly those who forsook their sins and showed due repentance. Exclusion from the Lord’s Table formed part of the disciplinary process.[54]
The means of grace
As far as the use of means is concerned, Judson’s method was preaching and church planting, followed immediately by the recognition, training, and equipping of indigenous pastors. Such men are then sent out to evangelize and church-plant. While his fellow missionaries were to some extent involved in schools, that was not Judson’s emphasis. There is a contrast here with William Carey. There were three bases in Carey’s plan to evangelize India: preach the Gospel, translate the Bible, and establish schools—proclamation, translation, education. The mission schools taught a wide range of subjects, but Bible instruction was an integral part of the curriculum.[55] In contrast to this, Judson emphasized advance by preaching, gathering converts, and church planting. He sent men out two by two, and this proved very effective.
Integral with preaching was the primacy of prayer and the prayer meeting. In his diary for November 10, 1819, he writes, “This evening is to be marked as the date of the first Burman prayer-meeting that was ever held. None present but myself and three converts. We agree to meet for this purpose every Tuesday and Friday evening, immediately after family worship.” Four days later he writes, “Have been much gratified to find that this evening three converts repaired to the zahat, and held a prayer-meeting of their own accord.”[56]
The doctrines of grace
For practical reasons, Judson was constrained to work out baptism and its implications in detail. Even with the best intentions in the world, it is not possible to develop all Christian doctrine with the same precision. When we come to the doctrines of grace, we find that he believed them implicitly, rather than by explicit exposition. He was not to know that a landslide into the natural thinking and reasoning of Arminianism was to come. There was not that self-consciousness about sovereign grace that we have in our generation, in which the truth has had to be re-established at great cost.
It is clear that he certainly did not believe in free will. Commenting on a conversation he had with two Buddhists, Adoniram wrote, “I never saw more clearly the truth of our Savior’s words, ‘Ye will not come unto me.’” Judson’s wholehearted belief in the doctrines of grace is evident in his correspondence, and also in the Confession of Faith he wrote for the Burmese in 1829. In the only English sermon he ever preached in Burma, he used Joh 10:1-18 as his text. In this he refers to the electing love of Christ. Irresistible grace and particular redemption are explicit in the sermon.[57] In creedal statements prepared by Judson for the Burmese Church, the doctrine of election is clearly stated, “God sends the Holy Spirit to enable those to become disciples who were chosen before the world was.”[58]
The doctrine of sanctification
As a translator of the Bible, Adoniram had the advantage of an accurate knowledge of the Biblical text. This should have assisted him greatly in his understanding of justification and sanctification. Especially is this so with regard to the Greek tenses for verbs to denote definitive or positional sanctification (see Rom 6:1-7:6; 1Co 1:2; 6:11; Act 20:32). Judson always enjoyed a full assurance of his union with the Triune God. There was never a time when he doubted this. However, during the extended dark period of depression following the desolation of bereavement, he sought to find comfort in a felt knowledge of the love of God. He was seeking a deeper experience. He writes in his diary, “Believe in the doctrine of perfect sanctification attainable in this life” (May 14, 1829).[59] If we were to transpose this situation into our time and had been corresponding with him, we would have sent by air mail a photocopy of Professor Murray’s, 1975, masterly work on definitive sanctification![60]
For the sake of clarity, we can look at progressive sanctification doctrinally, practically, and experimentally. Reference has already been made to Judson’s seemingly defective understanding about positional sanctification. In that respect, we who are in Christ are perfect. We cannot be more in union with Him than we are, and the righteousness imputed to us is perfect. In practical terms, we are never perfect, even though we strive for perfection. In this striving, Judson was exemplary. Like the Puritans, he constantly made covenantal pledges. For the period 1819 to 1826, he made eight rules for himself:
1. Be diligent in secret prayer every morning and evening.
2. Never spend a moment in mere idleness.
3. Restrain natural appetites within the bounds of temperance and purity, “Keep thyself pure” (1Ti 5:22).
4. Suppress every emotion of anger and ill-will.
5. Undertake nothing from motives of ambition, or love of fame.
6. Never do that which, at the moment, appears displeasing to God.
7. Seek opportunities of making some sacrifice for the good of others, especially of believers, provided the sacrifice is not inconsistent with some duty.
8. Endeavour to rejoice in every loss and suffering incurred for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s.
To these he added:
1. Rise with the sun.
2. Read a certain portion of Burman every day, Sundays excepted.
3. Have the Scriptures and some devotional book in constant reading.
4. Read no book in English that does not have devotional tendency.
5. Suppress every unclean thought and look.[61]
As far as Reformed literature is concerned, it is hard to find anything substantial on the experimental side of our faith. Apart from Jonathan Edwards and Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, what is there of substance on the theme of joy unspeakable and full of glory? What is there of an experimental nature on “God has poured out his love into our hearts” (Rom 5:5)? In the worst year of his life for temptation and depression, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1981, found little to help him. It was during 1949 that he experienced as never before the love of God and joy unspeakable.[62] We know that the pastoral exposition of Richard Sibbes helped him at that time. Later, Dr. Lloyd-Jones was to write on the theme of experience in detail. We can refer to his work on Romans chapter eight and to his commentary on Ephesians (1:3), and two books, Joy Unspeakable and Prove All Things. The doctrine proposed and the terminology used has been disputed. However, even though we might not agree about the formulation of the doctrine or the words used, we must concede that Dr. Lloyd-Jones did expound experimental areas of our faith which in our Reformed tradition have often been neglected.[63]
If Dr. Lloyd-Jones found little literature on the theme of inward experience, we ought not to be censorious of Judson, who read and commended Madame Guyon, the Roman Catholic mystic.[64] Madame Guyon and the mystics she represented laid great stress upon the inner life and union of the soul with God. They taught that our wills may be completely lost in the divine will, that we should strive after a disinterested love for Him, and that entire sanctification is possible in this world. The aim of every believer is to be entirely at rest in God. Roman Catholic theology is destitute of exposition on union with Christ, let alone the experimental side of that central truth. This bankruptcy characterizes Lutheran theology as well.[65] It is not surprising then that interest has been shown in those who have been prepared to explore the experimental aspect of this truth. This interest in experience arose out of Judson’s genuine spiritual needs. His interest in the mystical writers did not seem to affect him adversely or flow over into other areas of Christian teaching.
As far as Roman Catholicism is concerned, Judson regarded that system as hopelessly given to idolatry. When two of his disciples sought and obtained his good will to visit the Roman Catholic priest so that they might find out what Rome taught, they were shocked. The priest insulted their intelligence by saying that he held under his cassock something very precious. Then gradually he gave them a peek of a little image of Mary. The two disciples came away confirmed that Rome had nothing to offer. They said that as far as idols were concerned, the statues of Buddha were far more impressive than the little image of a Jewish woman![66]
Eschatology
With regard to the future, Judson’s views were post-millennial.[67] He believed in the conversion of the Jews and took practical steps to promote a fund of 10,000 dollars so that the American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions might establish a permanent missionary in Israel. This effort did not succeed. However, Judson was comforted by the knowledge that a tract describing his work in Burma had been translated by a Jew, and that it had been the means of the conversion of a group of Jews.[68]
When he preached and evangelized in the ancient city of Prome, he was deeply conscious of the fact that he was the first ever herald of the Gospel in that place. “Thousands,” he wrote, “have never heard of God, nor their ancestors before them...how the preacher has preached, and how the hearers have heard, the Day of Judgment will show.” He believed that his work was only a beginning, and that Buddhism would eventually be entirely removed. This belief in the complete conquest of the Gospel over all alien systems motivated his actions and influenced and directed his prayers.[69]
He believed that Burma was to be converted to Christ, just as much as he believed that Burma existed. Just as much as he believed in the Holy Spirit, so much did he believe that in time Burma would be saved. During his visit to Boston in 1846, he was asked by James Loring, “Do you think the prospects are bright for the conversion of the heathen?” “As bright,” was his prompt reply, “as the promises of God!” It was his custom to plead for the fulfillment of those promises.[70]
Speaking in America in 1846, he declared, “The world is yet in its infancy; the gracious designs of God are yet hardly developed. Glorious things are spoken of Zion, the city of our God. She is yet to triumph, and become the joy and glory of the whole earth.” He regarded it as a great privilege to be involved in laying the foundations for such a victory.[71] These convictions bore him along in his constant labors of Bible translation. In the concluding years, he worked hard in forming a Burmese/English dictionary, which advanced far enough to be taken and completed by others.
Mastering the Language
From the beginning of his missionary call, Judson recognized the importance of proficiency in the languages of the Bible: Hebrew and Greek. He worked incessantly to master these. When called to Burma, he regarded proficiency in the Burmese language as an absolute necessity. In the progress of study he wrote a Burmese grammar, which he completed in 1816. This soon became a standard work, a most useful resource for missionaries who followed.
Wayland writes, “Twenty-one years after his first coming to Rangoon, Judson finished his translation of the whole Bible; but, not satisfied with his first version, six more years were devoted to a revision of this great work, and on the 24th of October, 1840, the last sheet of the new edition was printed. The revision cost him more time and labor than the first translation” (vol. 2, p. 138). Such was the quality of his translation that it earned the highest praise from the experts of that time.
Bible translation is a specialized calling, but all missionaries to foreign fields need to follow Judson's example of regarding proficiency in the language of the people as an absolute necessity.
The place of missionary societies
It should be self-evident that Judson believed in the role of missionary societies. The basis of this belief was the unity of the Church. There are works to be done that can only be achieved by a united effort of churches working in connection with each other. In such work co-operation is essential. While enjoying freedom of enterprise on the field of action, he was always submissive to those who were in charge of the overall strategy. There is the ideal that the local church should direct the affairs of missionary endeavor. As we see from Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas were sent out from the church in Antioch and reported back to that church. That principle is sound, but should not be used to stifle initiative when the only practical way to evangelize a whole nation is through a great concerted team effort. This is something that has been seen over and over again since the rise of the missionary movement in the early 18th century. A missionary now serving abroad told me that if it had been left to his local church, he would not be serving on the mission field. That church has ideals which preclude missionaries working with missionary societies. This friend had no alternative but to align with another church.