Steven Lawson, Repentance, and Grace

Some of you are well aware of disgraced pastor/preacher Steven Lawson’s marital infidelity with a woman roughly 50 years his junior. Lawson, 73, had been a beloved reformational baptist preacher for many years, and a frequent conference staple, having published many books and running in the same circles as John Macarthur, John Piper, the late RC Sproul, etc. But evidence of infidelity began to emerge last year. As details began to come through, it became clear that the affair was with a woman who was working as his assistant, and in in her 20s. Lawson, having a wife, kids, and grandkids, resigned from ministries, professorships, board positions, etc. 

When the news came out, I cautioned my congregation against jumping too quickly to judgment, insisting that Jesus’ point in “Judge not” (Mt.7:1) was not “Don’t use your brains,” but “Don’t assume you know everything before you actually do.” In other words, "be careful filling in gaps with details that may or may not be true, just to make the story make sense." I believed that God would work on Lawson, that he’d find repentance, and that this was a sin by a true Christian who would come under conviction in time (if he hadn’t already). 

It now being six months since news of the affair broke, Lawson has released an apology statement, copied in full below. After it I’ll share some thoughts in response: 

"It is with a shattered heart that I write this letter. I have sinned grievously against the Lord, against my wife, my family, and against countless numbers of you by having a sinful relationship with a woman not my wife. I am deeply broken that I have betrayed and deceived my wife, devastated my children, brought shame to the name of Christ, reproach upon His church, and harm to many ministries.

You may wonder why I have been silent and largely invisible since the news of my sin became known. I have needed the time to search my own soul to determine that my repentance is real.

I alone am responsible for my sin. I have confessed my sin to the Lord, to my wife, and my family, and have repented of it. I have spent the past months searching my heart to discover the roots of my sin and mortifying them by the grace of God. I hate my sin, weep over my sin, and have turned from it.

My sin carries enormous consequences, and I will be living with those for the rest of my life. Over the years, many have looked to me for spiritual guidance, and I have failed you. I beg for your forgiveness.

I have been undergoing extensive counseling for the last five months to face the hard questions I need to address. I have dealt with sin issues that have been painfully exposed in my heart. I have submitted myself in weekly accountability to two pastors and to the elders of a local congregation, who have shepherded my soul. I am also under the oversight of an accountability team who monitor my progress and give me wise counsel in the decisions I have to make.

I am growing in grace, reading and absorbing the Word of God, putting it into practice, praying, and meeting with other believers. I am involved in the life of the church, attending and participating in prayer meetings, Sunday school, the worship service, and taking communion weekly. I am being fed the Word in the mid-week Bible study. Please pray for my spiritual growth into Christlikeness as I follow Him moment by moment during this recovery season. I am grateful for the unmerited grace of God in the gospel to extend His full forgiveness to me. Again, I ask for your forgiveness as well.

While I continue to do the hard work of soul-searching repentance, I do not intend to make further public comments for the foreseeable future.

Please pray for the Lord’s mercy and grace as I seek to make right the deeply wrong sins I have committed against my wife and family, and that in His time and way He will bring about redemption and restoration in our marriage, for His glory.

Steven Lawson”

First, I suggest that this is genuine. These are the words of someone who is grieved, sorry, and embarrassed by his grievous, sorry, and embarrassing sin. Explaining going six months in public silence because he wants to determine if his repentance is real is, to me, indicative of the self-consciousness that he could “repent” just to restore himself to his previously prominent position. But that is not what Lawson is trying to do. He took enough time—time in which he would be thought of by everyone as a fool or a wolf)—to find out if he is repenting out of “godly grief” (2 Cor. 7:10) or out of mere embarrassment. That is significant, and it comes through in the letter both explicitly and implicitly. Further, submitting to an accountability team is indicative of deference to others’ wisdom, and a sign of humility.

Second, I suggest we reconsider the notion that sexual sin is more prominent among Christians and especially clergy than the common individual. Just a quick internet search reveals several interesting facts (if these stats are accurate): 

-In 2024, a study showed that 21% of people in monogamous relationships admit to cheating, 23% being men and 19% being women.

-In 2014, the percentage of Ashley Madison users who identify as Christian fell somewhere between 22.7% and 25.1%, depending on their denominational affiliation.

-One study put the percentage of clergy involved in affairs at around 12%. Another one put it at 30%, which seems high, but not that much higher than the other numbers. 

My point is this: While it seems really difficult to pin down exact numbers, since infidelity is often not admitted to, the numbers aren't really that different between non-Christians and even clergy. So while even one clergy affair is too many, the idea that we have a pastoral epidemic seems dramatic. Instead, it seems to me that the problem is no different comparing ministers to the general public. Infidelity is a human problem, a human sin. Lawson sinned first as a human, and secondly as a pastor and preacher. It only seems more grievous because he was a pastor. 

Third, no man is your savior, except Jesus. If it hasn’t happened yet, rest assured that people you look up to who will fail you, sometimes devastatingly so. But their sin proves the same point that the gospel revealed thousands of years ago: God is true, though everyone were a liar (Rom.3:4). We have a tendency to platform men and women into almost God-like positions of immutability, then when they fail, we’re crushed. Let it drive you to hope in Christ. “Put not your trust in princes” (Psalm.146:3) applies to clergy as well, maybe especially so.

Finally, don’t judge. It’s culturally marxist thinking to assume that speech is a power grab, and not the legitimate expression of the heart (however imperfect we are at expressing what’s in our hearts). What I mean is this: It’s revealing of your subjection to cultural sensibilities if you just assume that Lawson is lying. What I read above are the words of a broken man whose “house” has fallen and great is the fall of it (Mt.7:27). In this position, Lawson knows he needs God’s grace for forgiveness, change, and personal restoration. Lawson will never be in vocational ministry again, but if he seeks God, he’ll find him: “You’ll find me if you seek me with all of your heart” (Jer.29:13). Perhaps we’d do well if, instead of assuming the worst motives, we’d “hope all things” (1 Cor. 13:7), and search our hearts lest we stumble in the same way others have. 

On Faith's Security: First London Confession (1644), Article 23

At the risk of appearing lazy, I'm going to blog something I've already written. I haven't been blogging much recently because most of my writing time over the last six months has been spent on two projects: First, preparing my dissertation for publication (it releases this week); and second, working on my study of the 1644 London Confession of Faith which corresponds to my current Adult Sunday School study, in hopes of publishing it later this year. So I'm going to share below from said study, particularly Article 23 (XXIII) of 52. A few points are worth noting first: 

1. The 1644 London Baptist Confession of Faith was the first explicitly17th century reformed confession. It was written by Baptists who were trying to show their solidarity with Nicene orthodoxy and Calvinistic doctrine, so as to distinguish themselves from anabaptists who had been involved in some pretty crazy things. 

2. As such the Confession predates the publication of the Westminster Confession of Faith. To be clear, it is not a competition. But it is significant (at least to me) that these Baptist pastors did not seem to need prompting from other reformed evangelicals to write such a work. 

3. The confession was written by representatives from only seven baptist churches in England. As such there are relatively few names attached to it, when compared to similar Confessions of the 17th century. I imagine that they wore themselves out writing this confession.

4. Finally, the confession is not to be mistaken with the later Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, written in 1677, and ratified and published in 1689 when there was a new freedom for evangelicals to do so. Part of my aforementioned writing project aims to correct what I see as misperceptions about supposed similarities between the First Confession and the Second: I don't think they're as similar as some reformed baptists do, and I think that there are good reasons to think as much.*

All of that said, Article 23 of the Confession is a relatively lengthy treatise on the security that believers in Christ have because of their faith. Since this particular article is lengthy, my study of it is relatively shorter than other studies. But my hope is that my readers will be encouraged to consider the security that they have in Jesus: They are safe in his hand as their faith--the hand that reaches out to eternity where Christ is--clings to him. What follows will be a) the Confession article as written in 1644 with original prooftexts, b) my pastoral reflection, and c) a sort of "takeaway" question that I anticipate being asked by readers, with answer. 

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XXIII. Faith Secures Us 

All those that have this precious faith wrought in them by the Spirit, can never finally nor totally fall away; seeing the gifts of God are without repentance; so that He still begets and nourishes in them faith, repentance, love, joy, hope, and all the graces of the Spirit unto immortality; and though many storms and floods arise, and beat against them, yet they shall never be able to take them off that foundation and rock, which by faith they are fastened upon; not withstanding, through unbelief, and the temptation of Satan, the sensible sight of this light and love, be clouded and overwhelmed for a time; yet God is still the same, and they shall surely be kept by the power of God unto salvation, where they shall enjoy their purchased possession, they being engraved upon the palms of His hands, and their names having been written in the book of life from all eternity.

Matt. 7:24-25; John 13:10; 10:28,29; 1 Pet. 1:4-6; Is. 49:13-16

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Here faith begins to find definition. The first thing to note is that faith is precious. It is not cheap, and neither is it common to all men. “Not all have faith” (2 Thes. 3:2). But as faith is given by God (as the next article will show), it has its effect in orienting the believer Godward for all of eternity. Faith comes by hearing the gospel (Rom.10:10), which is the power of God for salvation (Rom.1:16). And this salvation includes the initial act of justification, the continuing work of sanctification, and the final work of glorification. “You were sanctified, you were justified…by the Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:11). 

Thus the writers emphasize the eternal nature of the salvation that faith gives: Believers will never “totally fall away,” as Christ continues to “beget and nourish them in the faith, repentance, love, joy, hope…” etc. This precious faith is the means through which God guards the believer for the day of Christ’s return when faith will be sight: “By faith you are guarded for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5). Note both sides of the coin, according to the apostle: Believers are guarded, meaning God protects them; but they are guarded by faith, meaning that this guardianship is not exclusive of their effort to keep and maintain faith. “I’ve kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7). We might well remember the disciples asking the Lord, “Increase our faith!” (Lk.17:8); such a prayer is every believer’s responsibility to pray. 

This faith is itself the sight of God’s glory in the face of Jesus. He gives sight (cf. Jn.9). By faith we grasp the eternal realm, apprehending those things that can’t be seen (cf. Heb.11:1-3).** We reach our hand out to eternity, and lay hold of it. Geerhardus Vos once defined faith in terms of “that organ for apprehension of unseen and future realities, giving access to and contact with another world. (Faith is) the hand stretched out through the vast distances of time and space, whereby the Christian draws to himself things far beyond, so that they may become actual to him.”*^  Being divinely-given and other-worldly-nurtured, believers overcome every attempt by the devil, the world, and the flesh to thwart their fellowship with God. “By this we overcome the world: our faith” (1 Jn. 5:4). While the enemy attacks repeatedly (cf. Eph.6), and there might be times that believers will fall under hard providences, they nevertheless stand strong and overcome (Rev.2-3). 

Making it to the end proves, as the confession concludes, that believers’ names are written in the palms of the Lord’s hands, and in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Is.49:13-16, Rev.13:8, 17:8). True believers endure to the end because they are clothed in Christ, whom they put on, making no provision for the flesh (Rom.13:14). But this is why when the Lamb marries his bride (the church), she is clothed in the righteous deeds of the saints (Rev.19:11). Godliness, growth in grace, good works, etc. are all the Lord’s works in men and women; but men and women do, indeed, participate. As is often the scriptural case, one need not choose between the propositions as though they were exclusive options. Rather the truth is seen more fully in holding both aspects side by side: We bear fruit abiding in him as he abides in us (Jn.15:1-6); we do good works he has prepared beforehand (Eph.2:10). And nothing could be a greater honor than to participate in this way in the very life of God, him working through us.*^^

Question—What part does the believer have in their faith? 

-They are to “build themselves up in their most holy faith,” (Jude 20), doing everything in their power to build up and grow in their faith. Hence, as the above reflection showed, Peter says that it is by faith that God’s power guards us; both sides are present in the safeguarding: God’s act (giving faith) and man’s act (exercising faith). In short, God gives the faith that sustains the person’s fellowship with God, and the person works out their salvation by faith. The next article will explain this a little more fully. 

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*This is a summary of content taken from the introduction to the current project I'm working on, To Give to Christ What Is His: A Pastoral Study of the First London Confession of Faith (forthcoming.) 

**Dallas Willard has a really good little study on the greek used in Hebrews 11:1, where faith in Christ is defined less in subjective terms and more objectively. That is, that faith is the evidence of Christ and the glory to which he's taking us more than it is a personally (subjective) hope in Christ the glory, etc. Put otherwise, one has faith because they have Christ. No one would believe the gospel unless Christ brought them along to believe it (for faith is by grace, Ac.18:27). If a person believes, Christ has, indeed brought them. See Willard, Renovation of the Heart, 132.

*^ See Geerhardus Vos, "Heavenly Mindedness" in his book of sermons, Grace and Glory, 122. 

*^^ See Hans Boersma, Sacramental Preaching, 139-146, for an excellent sermon that engages the participatory nature of our works in Christ's works, based especially on Rev.19:8. 

Lloyd-Jones, and Amazement at Saving Grace

A couple of weeks ago was the 125th anniversary of David Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s birth (Dec.20, 1899). While “the Doctor” has now been with the Lord for almost 44 years, his influence lives on among “Reformed” evangelicals.* Lloyd-Jones was a medical doctor who as a young man rose to the rank of assistant to Sir Thomas Horder, the Royal Physician to Kings Edward VII, George V, and George VI. For several years Lloyd-Jones struggled with his medical practice because, having fully embraced his Christian faith, he wrestled with a call to preach. Eventually he surrendered to God and took a pastorate in his home country, Wales. His giftedness was on display early, and he eventually came to Westminster Chapel in central London, as the assistant pastor to (the great) G. Campbell Morgan. After several years of mentoring and sharing pastoral duties, Morgan in 1943 handed the reigns of Westminster’s ministry to the Doctor. He served in the pulpit at Westminster until he retired in 1968, leaving a legacy of gospel-driven exegesis that will never be forgotten.

I recently came across a quote from one of Lloyd-Jones’ daughters that I’d never seen before. It knocked me back, and it’s been buzzing around in my head all day today. The writer of a book my elders and I are reading relays the conversation he had with the daughter, asking her what was the key to the Doctor’s long ministry. He then shares, 

“In typical pointed clarity, she answered: ‘I don’t think he ever got over his salvation. He never stopped being surprised by it.’ That,” says the writer, “is what we want for our congregations.”**

Indeed it is. You’ve sang John Newton’s “Amazing Grace” countless times throughout your life. But is God’s grace truly amazing to you? That God would save someone like you, and by such a glorious gospel in which he creates and allows the fall so that he can demonstrate his mercy and let grace reign for eternity (Rom.5:21)? Then draw folks by his mysterious, gentle, patient leading, so that you who’ve believed in him will only in the end be able to claim, “He loved me first” (cf. 1 Jn. 4:19)? 

I’m not the Doctor—more like the janitor of the doctor’s office! But the longer I journey with Jesus the more convinced I am that salvation is of the Lord. That he’d have his hand on me my whole life—slowly but surely drawing me, calling me, providing for me, and being long-suffering toward me, all so that I’d share his grace with those whom he’s given me to serve—all of this is the height of filial kindness from my Lord who loved me and gave himself for me (cf. Gal.2:20). I’m more and more realizing how miraculous it is that I belong to Jesus. Surprising, indeed. 

May you also never stop being surprised by your salvation! 

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*I don’t mean to demean the “Reformed” label, to which I even ascribe. I just have come to believe that it has such a range of meaning among those who use it that it is almost meaningless now. 

**Jamie Dunlop, Mark Dever, Compelling Community, 182.