A Hero From History

It’s been awhile, maybe years, since I’ve read anything by my historical hero. Recently, I went back to rediscover what originally got me jazzed. Wow; this stuff is incredible. I’ve never read anyone so overwhelmed and dazzled by the God-man Christ Jesus. I get so familiar with the Lord, and easily lose my grasp of the glory of our Savior. It’s time to climb the mount of transfiguration again, and have the roof blown off my concept of God.

Nobody does that for me like Samuel Rutherford. He’s not exactly a household name. He was Scottish, born in a farm family in the 1600’s. He studied at Old St. Andrews and became a Presbyterian pastor. Rutherford was a significant participant in the Westminster Assembly. Interestingly, one of his published works which attacked the divine right of earthly kings and proclaimed God the only true sovereign became one of the significant underlying theories of modern democracy. He died being chased down by the English monarchy (no wonder) saying that he couldn’t appear before the royal prosecutor because he had a prior summons before the Holy Judge.

Not much is left of his pastoral writing and works except his letters. But what letters! Spurgeon valued them as much as anything outside the Bible. Rutherford was a pastor, but had been exiled from his congregation due to persecution. He wrote to his congregants from there. The thing that hit me for the first time the other day was to realize, wow, we still have these letters! The people he wrote to obviously felt that he had something eternally valuable to say. The letters survived long enough for someone to come along much later and collect them, so that they could be preserved in a single volume. Here is a sample from a letter I just read:

O, come all and drink at this living well; come, drink and live forevermore; come, drink and welcome; welcome says our fairest Bridegroom; no man finds any ill will in Christ; no man comes and is not welcome; no man comes and regrets his voyage; all men speak well of Christ, who have been with Him; men and angels who know Him will say more than I now do, and think more of Him than they can say.

Before you go to Amazon and think about buying the book (there are at least two actually), I’ll warn you that he gets a little dense, due to obscure Scottish words. My wife kindly bought me a short, abridged version of some of his letters, called “The Loveliness of Christ”, edited by Sinclair Ferguson, which just came out in 2007. It’s very short and very readable. You can find it here. I’m so thankful for the heroes that went before us who inspire our faith, and lately, especially, for Samuel Rutherford.