DARBY'S LIFE AND WORK
John Nelson Darby, namesake of family friend and famed
British admiral, Lord Nelson, was born in London of Irish parents on November
18, 1800. Ireland furnished the backdrop for his earliest years of development
and education. In 1819 at the age of eighteen, Darby graduated from Trinity
College Dublin as a Classical Medalist.
Brilliant, gifted, and with all
the right connections, Darby had been groomed for and was practically assured a
successful career in Law. But a deep spiritual struggle gripped the budding
young barrister in his eighteenth year and caused him to abandon that
profession after only one year of practice between 1822 and 1823. Darby's
spiritual odyssey lasted until 1825 when he received ordination as deacon in
the Church of England. The following year, he was elevated to the priesthood
and assigned a curacy in remote County Wicklow, Ireland.
Taking up
residence in a peasant's cottage on a bog, Darby covered the great untamed
expanse of his ecclesiastical responsibility on horseback in the manner of John
Wesley. His gentleness of spirit and saintly bearing and conduct quickly earned
him a place in the hearts of his poor parishioners. So committed was Darby to
the instruction of the peasantry in the Word of God that he was seldom found at
his own humble dwelling before midnight. His labours did not go unrewarded.
Although he expended most of his modest wages and personal inheritance on the
local schools and charities, by Darby's on account Catholics were "becoming
protestants at the rate of 600 to 800 a week." Darby's standard of reward and
gain was always in terms of souls won for the kingdom, never silver added to
the purse.
For some time the young circuit-riding cleric had been
troubled by the condition of the established church, but his demanding duties
had prevented any decisive action. He was to receive time for undisturbed
reflection on the issue, however, when his horse bolted during one journey
through the parish, throwing its rider with tremendous force against a
doorjamb. The ensuing lengthy convalescence from the required surgery in
Dublin, served as an incubator for Darby's discontent.
Darby says,
"During my solitude, conflicting thoughts increased; but much exercise of soul
had the effect of causing the scriptures to gain complete ascendancy over me. I
had always owned them to be the Word of God . . . the careful reading of the
Acts afforded me a practical picture of the early church; which made me feel
deeply the contrast with its actual present state; though still, as ever
beloved by God." After only twenty-seven months with the Church of England and
thoroughly dissatisfied with what he viewed as rampant Erastianism and
clericalism, Darby sought fellowship and ministry outside the established
church.
Eventually, Darby made the acquaintance of a group of
like-minded believers, members of the Church of England in Dublin, and met with
them for prayer and Bible study during the winter of 1827-28. It was this group
which would later become known as the Plymouth Brethren. The two guiding
principles of the movement were to be the breaking of bread every Lord's Day,
and ministry based upon the call of Christ rather than the ordination of man.
While Darby was not the founder of this group, he quickly emerged as its
spiritual leader and dominant force.
By 1840, the Plymouth movement
had grown to 800 strong and would reach more than 1200 within the next five
years. Even though Darby disliked denominational labels, preferring rather the
simple biblical designation "brethren," it was perhaps inevitable that these
"brethren" who met at Plymouth, should become known as the "Plymouth Brethren."
Many other Brethren groups formed in Britain and subsequently in other
parts of the world. As a result of his extensive travels, Darby himself was
responsible for the spread of Brethren doctrine to other countries. He made
several trips to preach and teach in Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, and
Holland. Between 1859 and 1874, Darby made six trips to the United States and
Canada where he ministered in all the major cities and in some of the smaller
ones as well. Included also in Darby's itinerary were visits to the West Indies
and New Zealand.
Wherever Darby went, he never tired of expounding his
views on the doctrine of the church and future things. He was convinced both
that the organized church was in a state of ruin and that Christ's return to
rapture the saints and establish the millennial kingdom was imminent. While
Darby's call for a radical response to the apostate condition of the church was
met with relative indifference, his teachings on eschatological themes were
heartily embraced and provided much of the substance for the Bible conference
movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But more than
any one doctrine, it was Darby and the Brethren's fundamental orthodoxy that
appealed to Bible believing Christians everywhere.
DARBY'S CHARACTER
Any portraiture of Darby the
man must be painted in sharp black and white tones, never in shades of gray. He
was a man of incredible intensity. First and foremost, he was intensely
committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was his only love and all-consuming
passion. He cared for little that this world had to offer. Though meticulous in
personal cleanliness, for example, Darby wore only simple clothing and those to
the point of shabbiness. It is said that on one occasion while he slept, some
kindly friends seized the opportunity to substitute new clothing for old. Upon
waking, Darby donned the new apparel without remark or even apparent notice.
Darby was kind and humble in nature and his compassion and generosity
towards the poor was without bounds. He observed that "Christ preferred the
poor; ever since I have been converted so have I. Let those who like society
better have it. If I ever get into it . . . I return sick at heart. I go to the
poor; I find the same evil nature as in the rich, but I find this difference:
the rich, and those who keep their comforts and their society, judge and
measure how much of Christ they can take and keep without committing
themselves; the poor, how much of Christ they can have to comfort them in their
sorrows. That, unworthy as I am, is where I am at home and happy." Darby in no
way felt intellectually ill-equipped for cultivated society, it was just that
given the choice, he rejected it all in preference for the cross.
Kindly in disposition and humble in spirit though Darby was, his absolute
devotion to the Word of God and demand for unflinching fidelity to its truth,
as he understood it, made him ready prey for controversy. His limitless
patience with the honest ignorance of the poor and unlearned was legendary. But
so was his wrath against those among the well educated who played fast and
loose with the truth of the gospel of Christ.
A full twenty-five years
after one "heterodox teacher" had felt the brunt of Darby's indignation, he was
to write, "J.N.D. writes with a pen in one hand and a thunderbolt in the
other." But as Darby's biographer, W. G. Turner points out, "it was only
fundamental error which roused his deepest grief and indignation, his patience
with honest blunderers being proverbial."
If ever the epithet,
"fighting Fundamentalist" applied to anyone, it applied to J. N. Darby. At the
same time, it is true that Darby derived no pleasure from controversy and often
expressed his love for the object of his more potent polemics. But in his view,
faced with a choice between peace on the one hand and truth on the other, there
could be no alternative but to defend the truth.
Wherever Darby went,
whether peasant's home or hallowed halls of Oxford, his nobleness of character,
keenness of mind, dedication to Christ, and commanding presence made him the
focus of attention. The great Bible teacher and preacher, G. Campbell Morgan
recounts as one of the "cherished recollections" of his boyhood his encounter
with Darby who had come to visit his father. "He vividly recalls the almost
reverential awe that lay upon him in the presence of that truly great man, and
how the awe gave place and the reverence remained, when the visitor spoke
kindly to him about his studies."
DARBY'S
DOCTRINE
Darby is called by many the father of modern
dispensational theology, a theology made popular first by the Scofield
Reference Bible and more recently by the Ryrie Study Bible. It is a theology
that has gained wide influence through the publications and educational efforts
of institutions like Dallas Theological Seminary and Moody Bible Institute. Yet
while Darby is the centre of almost every controversy over the origin of this
theological system, his works are little known and seldom read. This is true
among the critics and champions of dispensational theology alike. This neglect
is unfortunate, for Darby is credited with much of the theological content of
the Fundamentalist movement. There is little doubt too, that Darby had a
tremendous part in the systematization and promotion of dispensational
theology.
Today, however, Darby's theological distinctives have
virtually been reduced to his doctrine of the church in ruins, the
premillennial return of Christ - with special emphasis upon Israel and the
church's role in that kingdom age - and the rapture of the church. As important
as these doctrines are in Darby's theology, they were but an outgrowth of other
doctrines which must be considered the bedrock of his and the Brethren's
teaching. It is the bedrock upon which orthodox Christianity has stood since
Pentecost and upon which Fundamentalists made their stand shortly after the
turn of the century.
Inspiration and
Infallibility of Scripture
Darby was unswerving in his belief
that the Bible was the inspired, infallible Word of God, absolutely
authoritative and faithfully transmitted from the original autographs. "If the
world itself were to disappear and be annihilated," asserts Darby, "and the
word of God alone remained as an invisible thread over the abyss, my soul would
trust in it. After deep exercise of soul I was brought by grace to feel I could
entirely. I never found it fail me since. I have often failed; but I never
found it failed me."
Once questioned as to whether he might not allow
that some parts of the New Testament may have had only temporary significance,
Darby retorted, "'No! every word, depend upon it, is from the Spirit and is for
eternal service!'" Darby felt compelled to affirm his fidelity to the Word of
God because "In these days especially . . . the authority of His written word
is called in question on every side . ."
Deity
and Virgin Birth of Christ
On the deity of Christ, Darby is no
less compromising than he is on the place of Scripture in the believer's life.
"The great truth of the divinity of Jesus, that He is God," says Darby, "is
written all through scripture with a sunbeam, but written to faith. I cannot
hesitate in seeing the Son, the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the First and the
Last, Alpha and Omega, and thus it shines all through. But He fills all things,
and His manhood, true, proper manhood, as true, proper Godhead, is as precious
to me, and makes me know God, and so indeed only as the other, He is 'the true
God and eternal life.' "If Christ is not God," concludes Darby, "I do not know
Him, have not met Him, nor know what He is." As one of the truths connected
with the person and work of Christ, Darby cites the "miraculous birth of the
Saviour, who was absolutely without sin . . ."
Substitutionary Atonement
Just as the doctrine
of the deity of Christ is written all through the Bible, Darby maintains that
the propitiation secured by the sacrificial death of Christ "is a doctrine
interwoven with all Scripture, forms one of the bases of Christianity, is the
sole ground of remission - and there is none without shedding blood - and that
by which Christ has made peace; Col. 1:20."
Darby is convinced that
without the atoning work of Christ, man must bear the guilt of his sin, and
remain at a distance from God without knowledge of Him or of His love. But
thankfully that is not the case, for as Darby points out, "There is death in
substitution - He 'bore our sins in his own body on the tree' - 'died for our
sins according to the scriptures' . . ."
Resurrection of Christ
For Darby, "the Person of
Christ regarded as risen," is the pivot around which "all the truths found in
the word revolve." "Many have, perhaps, been able, in looking at the Church's
hope in Christ," says Darby, "to see the importance of the doctrine of the
resurrection. But the more we search the Scriptures, the more we perceive, in
this doctrine, the fundamental truth of the gospel - that truth which gives to
redemption its character, and to all other truths their real power." It is the
victory of Christ over death which gives the certainty of salvation. It is the
resurrection, asserts Darby, which "leaves behind, in the tomb, all that could
condemn us, and ushers the Lord into that new world of which he is the
perfection, the Head, and the glory." Consequently, this doctrine characterized
apostolic preaching.
Return of
Christ
Darby believed that it was essential that the church have
a right hope. That hope he understood to be the second coming of Christ. At his
coming, Darby maintained, Christ would take the saints to glory with Him, to
become the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
Darby insists that "Nothing is
more prominently brought forward in the New Testament than the second coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ." He points out that it was the promise of Christ's
return which was first offered to the sorrowing disciples as they witnessed the
ascension of their Lord as recorded in Acts 1:11. Furthermore, says Darby, "It
was not at all a strange thing - immediately after conversion to the living God
- 'to wait for his Son from heaven, even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath
to come.'"
In light of the foregoing, John F. Walvoord, president
emeritus of Dallas Theological Seminary, is certainly correct in saying that
"Much of the Truth promulgated by fundamental Christians today had its rebirth
in the movement known as the 'Plymouth Brethren."
Darby's Influence
It should be evident from the
foregoing that there is a distinct connection between the doctrines of the
Brethren and the Fundamentalists who rose to challenge modernism shortly before
and especially after the turn of the century. Well before publication of
The Fundamentals: A Testimony of Truth in 1909, the Brethren were
proclaiming the same basic truths of Scripture and staunchly defending them
against all comers. The very character of Brethren fellowship and beliefs is
such that to entertain liberal doctrines would destroy the movement altogether.
Many of the greatest Fundamentalist leaders of the past have openly
acknowledged their indebtedness to the teachings and ministry of Darby and the
Brethren. After securing the writings of C. H. Mackintosh, the man most
responsible for popularizing Darby's works, D. L. Moody said, "if they could
not be replaced, [I] would rather part with my entire library, excepting my
Bible, than with these writings. They have been to me a very key to the
Scriptures."
A. C. Gaebelein, contributor to The Fundamentals and one
of the most potent influences on the life and doctrine of C. I. Scofield, says
of Darby and other Brethren writers, "I found in his writings, in the works of
William Kelly, Mackintosh, F. W. Grant, Bellett, and others the soul food I
needed. I esteem these men next to the Apostles in their sound and spiritual
teachings." In the same breath Gaebelein speaks of four saints named John who
will be present at that great celestial meeting when Christ returns - John
Calvin, John Knox, John Wesley, and John Darby.
William Kelly, Darby's
closest friend and greatest student, never tired of admonishing others to "Read
Darby!" With some fifty-three volumes to his credit - including everything from
a complete translation of the Bible to a volume of verse - there is much of
Darby to read.
John Nelson Darby continued to serve and proclaim his
Saviour both with the written and spoken word until his departure to be with
Him on the 29th of April, 1882. And no matter what subject he addressed, one
theme always came to the fore - Jesus Christ. Just a few days before his
home-going Darby wrote in a final letter to the Brethren, "I can say, Christ
has been my only object; thank God, my righteousness too . . . Hold fast to
Christ."