Scripture, Sin, and the Spirit: Reflections on the Life, Ministry, and Preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones
This article originated as a preaching paper written for the purpose of my studies with The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Autumn 2023.
Few figures have been more formative for British evangelicalism than Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He is regularly regarded as the most gifted preacher of the twentieth century. His sermons continue to be read around the world today, and churches and organizations influenced by him still shape evangelicalism. Given this legacy, his ministry is clearly worth close consideration. By reflecting on his ministry, this paper identifies lessons for me as I minister in Britain today.
This reflection paper begins by summarizing the life of Lloyd-Jones. It then goes on to focus on three theological convictions that were foundational for his ministry: (1) the authority of Scripture; (2) the depravity of sin; and (3) the necessity of the Spirit. After evaluating his overall approach to preaching, it identifies three lessons from his ministry that are applicable to my own context today: (1) the primacy of preaching; (2) an emphasis on evangelism; and (3) the goal of faithfulness. This paper concludes by reflecting on the value of Lloyd-Jones as a model today.
The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Lloyd-Jones was born in Cardiff, Wales on December 20, 1899.[1] After a fire destroyed their shop in 1910, his family experienced severe financial problems. In 1914, his father declared bankruptcy and moved the family to London. Nevertheless, despite the turbulence of these years, Lloyd-Jones distinguished himself as a student, winning scholarships and excelling in exams. At the age of sixteen, Lloyd-Jones received a place to study medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, a leading medical school in London. When his studies finished, he became chief clinical assistant to Sir Thomas Horder, the royal physician. By 1925, Lloyd-Jones was working at the top of his profession and was widely expected to successfully pursue a prominent medical career.[2]
In 1926, however, the trajectory of his life took a dramatic turn. Over several years, he had been increasingly captivated, and then converted, through the preaching of Dr. John Hutton at Westminster Chapel. Further, caring for people had taught him that most problems in life are moral, not medical.[3] As a result, Lloyd-Jones left his career to enter pastoral ministry in Wales.
Lloyd-Jones was called to Bethlehem Forward Movement at Sandfields, Aberavon in 1927. Undertaking mission work in this Welsh working-class context contrasted sharply with his life in London. However, accompanied by his new wife, Bethan, he served wholeheartedly. As a result of his powerful preaching and pastoral care, Aberavon experienced a spiritual awakening, with five hundred people being converted and joining the church over the next eleven years.[4]
In 1938, Lloyd-Jones was called to Westminster Chapel, London, where he ministered until his retirement in 1968. During these decades, he became known as a powerful preacher and took a leading role in British evangelicalism. He drew large congregations on Friday evenings by preaching through books of the Bible, with his unfinished Romans series lasting thirteen years.[5] He also engaged in several public controversies, including over ecumenicalism and church unity. In 1966, he was widely criticized after publicly suggesting evangelicals should leave the historic denominations embracing liberalism and ecumenicalism, including the Church of England.[6] On retirement in 1968, Lloyd-Jones travelled extensively, preaching and lecturing internationally, and edited his sermons for publication.[7] After a period of illness, he died on March 1, 1981.
The Ministry of Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Having outlined the life of Lloyd-Jones, this paper will now identify three theological convictions that were foundational to his ministry. It will consider his formative convictions on (1) the authority of Scripture, (2) the depravity of sin, and (3) the necessity of the Spirit.
(1) The Authority of Scripture
When entering ministry, Lloyd-Jones was conscious of the moral and spiritual decline in Britain, focusing on this in a public address in 1925.[8] He understood this decline to be a result of poor preaching in many churches. As a result, he held “true preaching” to be the “greatest and the most urgent need” of the church and the world throughout the entire course of his ministry.[9]
Lloyd-Jones identified the main cause of poor preaching to be a lack of confidence in the authority of the Bible. Lecturing on preaching in 1969, after his retirement, he reasoned:
If you have not got authority, you cannot speak well, you cannot preach. Great preaching always depends upon great themes. . . . While men believed in Scripture as the authoritative Word of God and spoke on the basis of that authority you had great preaching. But once that went, and men began to speculate, and theorise, and to put up hypotheses and so on, the eloquence and the greatness of the spoken word inevitably declined and began to wane.[10]
Reflecting on the state of many churches, Lloyd-Jones elsewhere concluded, “There is no doubt that things are as they are in the Christian Church throughout the world today because we have lost our authority.”[11] He argued this occurred through higher criticism and liberalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.[12] As a result, he argued recovering the historic view of the Bible, including its authority and infallibility, would revitalize preaching, reinvigorate the church, and reach the world.[13] Iain Murray summarizes this conviction of Lloyd-Jones when he explains that the “solution to the present predicament of the churches does not lie simply in a new understanding of preaching. There must be men filled with new faith in the word of God.”[14]
In his ministry, Lloyd-Jones certainly epitomized a man filled with faith in the Word of God. Reflecting on the ministry of his grandfather, Christopher Catherwood insisted he truly believed in the absolute authority of the Bible: “The principle of sola scriptura made a complete difference to his life and ministry and to how he approached every issue with which he dealt.”[15]
This conviction is evident throughout his sermons. For example, in 1963, Lloyd-Jones preached nine evangelistic sermons from Isaiah 1:1–18. In these sermons, he repeatedly asserted that the authority of Scripture was the foundation for his preaching. When dealing with 1:1–2, he said that without the authority of Scripture he had no right to even get into the pulpit, as it would be “sheer arrogance” for him to preach his own ideas. Instead, he declared: “I am nothing but a mouthpiece. I am simply here to unfold the Bible, to let it speak.”[16] Similarly, when preaching on 1:4, he explained, “I am simply here to tell you what God has told me to tell you”.[17] From 1:5–6, he exclaimed, “I am not here to give vent to my own ideas and theories, but to expound the word of God.”[18] Likewise, preaching on 1:9, he stressed, “I repeat again, I am a preacher because of what God has done. This is not a theory. I am here to present to you an historical gospel.”[19] Lloyd-Jones clearly believed that Scripture’s authority was the foremost foundation for ministry.
(2) The Depravity of Sin
A second foundational conviction that Lloyd-Jones had was his grasp of the depravity of sin. He attributed moral and spiritual decline not only to poor preaching, but to a shallow view of sin. He argued, “The world is not interested in Christ for the simple reason that it does not see any need of him.”[20] As a result, he insisted that the first topic in evangelism must always be sin, for “nobody will really listen to the gospel until they have seen their need of it.”[21] He reasoned, “No one ever comes to Christ until the point of desperation has been reached. No one believes the message of this gospel until everything else has been tried and found to be a failure. . . . the right way of bringing people to Christ is to show them what they are without him”.[22]
Lloyd-Jones took this approach from the very beginning of his ministry. For example, he began a sermon in 1928 by declaring, “the church has always triumphed and had her greatest successes when she has preached the two-fold message of the depravity of human nature and the absolute necessity of the direct intervention of God for its final salvation”.[23] This is the two-fold message he would proclaim for the next fifty years. Similarly, in 1931, he called depravity “the most vital truth of the Christian religion. . . . only those who realize their need of the Saviour will ever find Him”.[24] Therefore, it “is always the first great statement of the Christian gospel.”[25]
Drawing from his medical training, Lloyd-Jones urged his hearers to look beyond their external symptoms to their underlying disease.[26] He saw sin as the source of all earthly problems and understood it to have even more serious eternal consequences. Indeed, in a sermon in 1963, he said if this had not been true, he would have remained a doctor. The reason he left medicine and entered ministry was to point people to the cure for sin, as that was their greatest problem.[27]
(3) The Necessity of the Spirit
Lloyd-Jones argued the two convictions discussed above were present in “every period of revival and re-awakening” and “great movement in the history of the church.”[28] However, he also believed the “greatest essential in connection with preaching” is the work of the Spirit.[29] His final lecture on preaching in 1969 focused on this, demonstrating that the power of the Spirit has been “the supreme thing” in every great movement and moment from Pentecost onwards. As a result, Lloyd-Jones urged preachers, “Seek it until you have it; be content with nothing less.”[30]
Lloyd-Jones sought the Spirit’s power for his ministry in various ways.[31] He prepared carefully for sermons, but always remained free to deviate from his plan while preaching if he felt led to do so.[32] He also maintained strong personal spiritual disciplines, and tried to prepare himself for preaching as much as he prepared the sermon. Specifically, he believed prayer was “vital” to the life of a preacher.[33] This was clearly true for him personally, as his wife reflected, “No one will understand my husband unless they recognise he was first an evangelist and a man of prayer.”[34] Lloyd-Jones sought the power of the Spirit as his “greatest concern” in ministry, and he saw this as the most “thorough and revealing test” that can be applied to any preacher.[35]
The Preaching of Martyn-Lloyd Jones
Having identified three theological ministry convictions for Lloyd-Jones, this paper will now evaluate his overall approach to preaching by discussing its strengths and weaknesses.
The main strength of his approach is undoubtedly his doctrinal emphasis. Lloyd-Jones argued that theology was of utmost importance to a sermon. He believed every sermon should be doctrinal, no matter if it aims to instruct believers or evangelize the lost. Indeed, he asserted that, “preaching must always be theological, always based on a theological foundation.”[36] Preachers should seek to uncover this theological foundation when studying a passage. Once they identify the central doctrine of the text, this then becomes the main content and focus of their sermon.[37]
However, while theological depth is what Lloyd-Jones is known for, he was also very balanced. He often emphasized Christian experience, remarking, “I spend half my time telling Christians to study doctrine and the other half that doctrine is not enough.”[38] In this way, his preaching is rightly described as “logic on fire!”[39] Lloyd-Jones always approached his doctrine from the perspective of application. He aimed to outline the real-life implications of a passage in the first few minutes of his sermon, often referring to current events, including military conflicts, social attitudes, and political scandals.[40] As a result, instead of his doctrinally rich sermons being dry, they were engaging and applicable to the everyday experiences and lives of his listeners.
There is also great breadth in his approach. Lloyd-Jones preached three sermons each week with three very different emphases: instructional on a Friday night, pastoral on a Sunday morning, and evangelistic on a Sunday night.[41] His preaching also ranged across the Bible, with a third of his sermons coming from the Old Testament.[42] This doctrinally deep, experientially balanced, and biblically broad approach is certainly a model we should seek to emulate today.
Nevertheless, there are some weaknesses to his preaching. First, Lloyd-Jones tended to speak more about sin than salvation. For example, in 1934, when preaching on the woman saved by her faith in Luke 7, his sermon mostly focused on how our view of sin can impact our view of Christ.[43] Indeed, he gave so much time to sin, he only briefly discussed salvation by faith at the very end.[44] This weakness also occurs later in his ministry. Preaching through Isaiah 1 in 1963, he regularly spent most of his time on the problem of sin, only turning to salvation in the final moments. Indeed, in some cases, he only briefly alludes to it in his final few sentences.[45] In this way, his great skill in diagnosing sin sometimes kept him from properly administering the cure.
Secondly, Lloyd-Jones sometimes comes across as repetitive, as he often approaches his text from the same perspective. As Ben Bailie argues, “one could say that the question ‘Why did the English (or Welsh) stop going to church?’ dominated Lloyd-Jones’s adult life.”[46] This is the question he addressed in his first major public speech in 1925, and it was still central to his thinking when lecturing on preaching in 1969.[47] Responding to spiritual and moral decline in the nation was a regular feature of his sermons, particularly in his evangelistic introductions.[48] While Lloyd-Jones was clearly addressing a pressing concern at the time, it narrowed his focus and it sometimes makes it feel like he is repeatedly preaching the same sermon from different texts.
Learning from Martyn-Lloyd Jones
Having evaluated his approach to preaching, this paper will now discuss three lessons we learn from the ministry of Lloyd-Jones that are applicable to ministering in my context today: (1) the primacy of preaching; (2) an emphasis on evangelism; and (3) the goal of faithfulness.
(1) The Primacy of Preaching
Lloyd-Jones wholeheartedly gave himself to preaching, believing “the primary task of the Church and of the Christian minister is the preaching of the Word of God.” He further insists, “we must not allow anything to deflect us from this, however good the cause, however great the need.”[49] This includes counseling and pastoral care, for he argued regular preaching provides a foundation for these.[50] This is becoming increasingly important in my own ministry, as it can be easy to allow my focus to drift away from the sermon to other pastoral concerns during the week.
Lloyd-Jones also warned of overemphasizing music in services, as this undermines the primacy of preaching and becomes a form of entertainment.[51] Unfortunately, this warning failed to impact British evangelicalism, as it is now common for Christians to attend churches based on the style and quality of their music, rather than the quality of their preaching. In such a culture, it can be tempting to emphasize music and performance to attract new members. However, Lloyd-Jones argues that preserving the primacy of preaching in services is essential for spiritual health. He states, “This may be slow work; it often is; it is a long-term policy. But my whole contention is that it works, that it pays, and that it is honoured, and must be, for it is God’s own method.”[52]
(2) An Emphasis on Evangelism
Lloyd-Jones is rightly known for his doctrinal preaching. However, it is important to remember that more than half of his preaching was evangelistic. As Iain Murray summarizes,
He is thought of as ‘the great expositor’, who preached long series at Westminster Chapel. But the truth is that, while other emphases were added to his original preaching, his original compulsion to be an evangelist never varied throughout his life. Through fifty years, he preached more evangelistic sermons than those of any other kind.[53]
Lloyd-Jones always prioritized evangelism, spending more time each week preparing for his Sunday night evangelistic sermon than the others.[54] He insisted, “there should always be one evangelistic service in connection with each church every week. I make this an absolute rule without any hesitation whatsoever.”[55] This is a result of his own experience. For years, Lloyd-Jones assumed his salvation, as the sermons he heard always addressed him as a Christian. As a result, he urged preachers to instead assume there are always unbelievers in their audience and to call them to faith. Indeed, he held that true preaching inevitably leads to evangelistic decisions.[56]
While the continued decline of Christianity means fewer unbelievers are now present, compared to the time of Lloyd-Jones, this must still be a regular part of my preaching. In each service, we always have some unbelievers present, particularly children of our church members, and it is important they are regularly confronted by the reality of their sin and need of salvation. The evangelistic emphasis of Lloyd-Jones provides me with an excellent model for doing this.
(3) The Goal of Faithfulness
The two men widely held as the most gifted British preachers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries shared much in common.[57] Both Charles Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones believed in the primacy of preaching and emphasized evangelism. They also both experienced conflict in their final years that left them isolated and condemned by wider evangelicalism. After suggesting evangelicals should leave liberal denominations in 1966, Lloyd-Jones was called a “separatist”, charged with “intolerance”, and increasingly lost influence as an evangelical leader.[58] However, reflecting on such conflicts, Lloyd-Jones insisted our aim must not be maintaining popularity or influence in our own day, but preparing ourselves for the account we will give on the last day.[59]
This eternal perspective is essential for ministering in Britain today, where you may be criticized by other evangelicals for emphasizing biblical teaching on sexuality and gender, or for holding a Baptist position on the church and the ordinances. Therefore, like Lloyd-Jones, I must set my heart on faithfulness for the future, not popularity in the present. For as Spurgeon put it, when experiencing similar conflict in his ministry, “It is yours and mine to do the right though the heavens fall, and follow the command of Christ whatever the consequences may be.”[60]
Conclusion
In Hebrews 13:7, we read, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the Word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” (ESV). Lloyd-Jones is undoubtedly one of the greatest leaders and preachers in British evangelicalism. His remarkable ministry was founded on his strong convictions about Scripture, sin, and the Spirit, and it is still being used by God to bear great fruit in many lives around the world today. While he was not a perfect preacher, he was both powerful and persuasive. His ministry is a model for all who seek to faithfully serve the church in Britain today, for it shows that through emphasizing preaching, evangelism, and faithfulness, we can follow in his fruitful footsteps. By remembering the legacy of this leader, and considering his life, we are able to see something of what Lloyd-Jones meant when he spoke of “the romance of preaching! There is nothing like it. It is the greatest work in the world, the most thrilling, the most exciting, the most rewarding, and the most wonderful.”[61]
[1] Undoubtedly, the most important biography is the single volume written by Iain Murray, a condensed and rewritten version of his previous two-volume work. Iain H. Murray, The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1899-1981 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2013). However, the close personal relationship between Murray and his subject means it can be slightly adulatory. This is balanced by reading the more critical treatment offered by John Brencher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) and Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press, 2002). A brief biography is available in Jason C. Meyer, Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018).
[2] Murray, The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1899-1981, 33–42.
[3] Meyer, Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life, 35–38.
[4] Murray, The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1899-1981, 144.
[5] Meyer, Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life, 40–41.
[6] Brencher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) and Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 116–141.
[7] It was during this period that one of Lloyd-Jones’s greatest contributions to evangelicalism was made, being a series of lectures on preaching at Westminster Theological Seminary in 1969. These lectures were published and made widely available. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1971).
[8] Murray, The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1899-1981, 50–53.
[9] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 7. This was also his reasoning at the start of his ministry in 1925, when speaking on the tragedy of moral decline. Murray, The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1899-1981, 50–53.
[10] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 11.
[11] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Authority (Chicago, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1958), 7.
[12] Lloyd-Jones, Authority, 33–35.
[13] For an overview of how he understood the doctrine of revelation, see Lloyd-Jones, Authority, 26–61.
[14] Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2008), 82.
[15] Christopher Catherwood, Martyn-Lloyd Jones: His Life and Relevance for the 21st Century (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 45.
[16] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way Not Ours: Isaiah 1:1-18 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2003), 6–9.
[17] Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way Not Ours, 50.
[18] Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way Not Ours, 55.
[19] Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way Not Ours, 101.
[20] Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way Not Ours, 106.
[21] Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way Not Ours, 21.
[22] Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way Not Ours, 71.
[23] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Evangelistic Sermons at Aberavon (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1983), 1.
[24] Lloyd-Jones, Evangelistic Sermons at Aberavon, 216.
[25] Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way Not Ours, 88.
[26] Around 1931, Lloyd-Jones preached an evangelistic sermon on John 3:19, during which he remarked, “We must discover the root cause, we must get down to the actual origin of the trouble. The disease must be exposed and discovered before it can be properly treated.” Lloyd-Jones, Evangelistic Sermons at Aberavon, 69.
[27] Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way Not Ours, 28.
[28] Lloyd-Jones, Evangelistic Sermons at Aberavon, 78–79; Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 23.
[29] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 305.
[30] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 327.
[31] This was so central to the ministry and preaching of Lloyd-Jones, that his views on the empowerment of the Spirit were the subject of an entire study. In this study, Tony Sargent argues Lloyd-Jones’s “basic conviction about preaching” was “the need to experience the sacred anointing and thus know the smile of God.” Tony Sargent, The Sacred Anointing: The preaching of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1994), 294.
[32] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 84.
[33] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 165, 168.
[34] Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace, 49.
[35] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 305.
[36] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 8, 63.
[37] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 75.
[38] Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace, 216. One of his best-known sermon series is experiential in focus. See Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures (Basingstoke, UK: Pickering & Ingis, 1965).
[39] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 96.
[40] For example, see Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way Not Ours, 64, 74, 78.
[41] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 61–62.
[42] Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace, 60.
[43] Lloyd-Jones, Evangelistic Sermons at Aberavon, 213.
[44] Lloyd-Jones, Evangelistic Sermons at Aberavon, 218.
[45] Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way Not Ours, 86.
[46] Ben Bailie, “Lloyd-Jones and the Demise of Preaching,” in Engaging with Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Life and Legacy of the Doctor, ed. Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones (Nottingham, UK: Apollos, 2011), 156.
[47] Bailie, “Lloyd-Jones and the Demise of Preaching,” 158.
[48] Lloyd-Jones, Evangelistic Sermons at Aberavon, 1, 79, 175. Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way Not Ours, 36.
[49] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 18, 22.
[50] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 184.
[51] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 15–16.
[52] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 49.
[53] Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace, 231.
[54] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 214–215.
[55] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 150.
[56] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 145, 149.
[57] Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace, 109–125.
[58] Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace, 168–169, 201. Brencher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) and Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 231.
[59] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Unity in Truth (Darlington, UK: Evangelical Press, 1991), 82.
[60] Charles H. Spurgeon, “Three Names High on the Muster-Roll,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 37 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1891), 426.
[61] Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 298.