Remembering John Stott
On July 27th the church lost one of its warriors for Christ. John R. W. Stott left this sin-stained world at the ripe age of 90 to
behold the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Stott struggled with the doctrine of hell back in the 90s, espousing what is known as Annihilationism (the false teaching
that hell will not be forever). Some say he later simply became agnostic on the whole doctrine of hell, which may be
even worse than denying that it is everlasting (Mark 9:42-48; 2 Thess 1:3-10). At any rate, the evangelical world was
stunned to see such a brilliant Bible mind stray in this matter.
This stumble notwithstanding, John Stott was a blessing to thousands of believers around the world. Through his pulpit ministry at All Souls Church in London, through his books, and through his life of service to the last, least and left-out, Stott was a channel of blessing. It is a real shame, in my mind, that most Baptists I know really have no clue who John Stott is, having never read or heard him.
Personally, I was introduced to Stott at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the Spring Semester of
2005. One of the required texts for Dr. Albert Mohler’s Systematic Theology course was The Cross of Christ by John R. W. Stott. That book catapulted me into far deeper thinking on the work of Jesus the Christ than anything I had ever encountered. Since then, I have enjoyed and been challenged by Stott’s commentary on John’s Epistles, as well as his classic preaching text Between Two Worlds.
Rather than continue to type my own words, I would simply like to let Stott have the last word on this blog post. May the readers of this blog take up the challenge to go buy some books authored by Stott and read them. They will drive you deeper into the Book of books – The Holy Bible.
We strongly reject, therefore, every explanation of the death of Christ which does not have at its centre the principle of ‘satisfaction through substitution’, indeed divine self-satisfaction through divine self-substitution. The cross was not a commercial bargain with the devil, let alone one which tricked and trapped him; nor an exact equivalent, a quid pro quo to satisfy a code of honour or technical point of law; nor a compulsory submission by God to some moral authority above him from which he could not otherwise escape; nor a punishment of a meek Christ by a harsh and punitive Father; nor a procurement
of salvation by a loving Christ from a mean and reluctant Father; nor an action of the Father which bypassed Christ as Mediator. Instead, the righteous, loving Father humbled himself to become in and through his only Son flesh, sin, and a curse for us, in order to redeem us without compromising his own character. The theological words ‘satisfaction’ and ‘substitution’ need to carefully defined and safeguarded, but they cannot in any circumstances be given up. The biblical gospel of atonement is of God satisfying himself by substituting himself for us (The Cross of Christ, IVP, 1986, pp. 159-60).