DARBY'S
LIFE
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 center
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, then
"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 to-day 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,
Mcintosh [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."