If you take this position, politics and so-called ‘culture building’ is still vital. But instead of being a positive work of building society up it is a negative work of preventing society from complete degeneration. You could think of it in terms of the flood of Genesis. The flood was a de-creation. On a different level, Christians, as salt in the world, serve to prevent de-creation (or as he calls it, ‘putrefication,’ using the metaphor of the function of salt). It’s an interesting take.
His son-in-law was a politician at the time, so the interview probes further into his views on individual Christians as politicians. To read the rest, see HERE.
Update: the original post I linked to was taken down. I’ve recovered it via the WayBack Machine at archive.org. Here’s the entire text:
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of Britain’s great 20th century evangelical leaders, was regarded by many in his day as the greatest Bible expositor in the English-speaking world. His numerous volumes of sermons, which he carefully prepared for publication, provide ample evidence of his unusual gift. He has been a primary influence on many of today’s leading Bible expositors — Bible teacher John MacArthur and evangelist Greg Laurie being two of the most notable.
When called to the Christian ministry at age 27, Lloyd-Jones was a brilliant young doctor on the staff of Lord Horder, physician to the royal family. With no formal theological training, he and his wife, also a talented physician, went to South Wales where he made the Bible his full-time text as he ministered to a small Presbyterian congregation. He soon became known as a dedicated and disciplined expository preacher.
He was called in 1938 at G. Campbell Morgan’s bidding as associate minister of Westminster Chapel, and became sole minister in 1943.
Lloyd-Jones preached 45-minute sermons on Sunday mornings and hour-long expositions at night. His Friday evening Bible studies, begun in 1952, attracted 1,200 persons. He taught without interruption for an hour, and many listeners wished he would continue longer. He took 12 years in expounding the Epistle to the Romans.
Lloyd-Jones died March 6, 1981. The following was one of his last interviews, with Carl Henry for Christianity Today, conducted in 1979.
politics, civilization and the end of time
What do you think Christianity ought to say to the economic situation today?
I think the great message we must preach is God’s judgment on men and on the world. Because man is a sinner, any human contrivance is doomed to fail; the only hope for the world is the return of Christ — nothing else. It amazes me that evangelicals have suddenly taken such an interest in politics; to do so would have made sense 50 or 100 years ago, but such efforts now seem to me sheer folly, for we are in a dissolving world. All my life I’ve opposed setting “times and seasons,” but I feel increasingly that we may be in the last times.
What undergirds that conviction?
To me 1967, the year that the Jews occupied all of Jerusalem, was very crucial. Luke 21:43 is one of the most significant prophetic verses: “Jerusalem” it reads, “shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” It seems to me that that took place in 1967 — something crucially important that had not occurred in 2,000 years. Luke 21:43 is one fixed point. But I am equally impressed by Romans 11 which speaks of a great spiritual return among the Jews before the end time. While this seems to be developing, something even more spectacular may be indicated. We sometimes tend to foreshorten events, yet I have a feeling that we are in the period of the end.
Would you agree that even if we might have only 24 or 48 hours, to withhold a witness in the political or any other arena is to withdraw prematurely from the social responsibility of the Christian and to distrust the providence of God? Might he not do something even in the last few hours that he had not done before? The closer we get to the end time, isn’t it that much more important to address public conscience? Must we not press the claims of Christ in all the arenas of society and remind people, whether they receive Christ or not, of the criteria by which the returning King will judge men and nations?
No, I’m afraid I don’t agree. It seems to me that our Lord’s own emphasis is quite different, even opposed to this. Take Luke 17 where we read, “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives . . . until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came …” You can’t reform the world. That’s why I disagree entirely with the “social and cultural mandate” teaching and its appeal to Genesis 1:28. It seems to me to forget completely the Fall. You can’t Christianize the world. The end time is going to be like the time of the Flood. The condition of the modem world proves that what we must preach more than ever is “Escape the wrath to come!” The situation is critical. I believe the Christian people — but not the church — should get involved in politics and in social affairs. The kingdom task of the church is to save men from the wrath to come by bringing them to Christ. This is what I believe and emphasize. The main function of politics, culture, and all these things is to restrain evil. They can never do an ultimately positive work. Surely the history of the world demonstrates that. You can never Christianize the world.
[Editor’s Note omitted]
Let’s grant that the regenerate church is the New Society and the only enduring society, that the world as such can never be Christianized and turned into the New Society, and that apart from regeneration there is no participation in the kingdom of God. Having said that, does not the church nonetheless have a mission of light and salt in the world? Even if the institutional church is not to be politically engaged, does not Christ wish to expand his victory over evil and sin and all the forces that would destroy him, by penetrating the social order with Christians to exemplify godliness and justice? Are they not to work for good laws and a just society, even though they cannot hope to Christianize society?
Certainly. Such effort prevents the world from putrefying. But I regard it as entirely negative. I do not regard it as anything positive.
Is it not possible that here or there at some points Christian effort might bring about what in quotation marks might be called “Christian culture “?
No. It will never come. All Scripture is against that. It’s impossible. In the present world situation — surely it has never been more critical — all civilization is rocking, and we are facing collapse, morally, politically, and in every other way. I would have thought that surely at this time our urgent message should be, “‘Flee from the wrath to come!”
Would you therefore encourage young people to consider the pulpit ministry or a missionary call above every other vocational call?
No. That’s something I have never done and never would do. Such a decision must be a personal call from God. But seeing the critical danger of the world we must surely urge people to escape. It’s amazing that any Christian could be concerned about anything else at this present time.
Would you be happier if Sir Fred Catherwood, your son-in-law, were in the Christian ministry rather than in his present political work in the European Parliament?
No, I wouldn’t. In fact, I was glad he resisted when pressure was brought upon him to go into the ministry. I’ve always tried to keep men out of the ministry. In my opinion a man should enter the ministry only if he cannot stay out of it.
Did you indicate to him the remarkable contribution that he could make in the political arena?
Yes. But I also said that he should never — speaking as a Christian –claim that “this is the Christian political view.” That approach was the mistake of Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper placed himself in a compromise position: a Christian minister becoming prime minister and then needing to form a coalition with Roman Catholics and claiming Christian sanction for specific political positions.
[Editor’s Note omitted]
Was there some ambiguity about evangelical doctrine in your own earliest preaching?
In the early part of my ministry I preached regeneration as the great message, but not justification (George Whitefield did the same for a time, you know). I preached what I was sure of. I neglected the Atonement, but within about two years I came to see that was an incomplete message.
Do you think that present-day evangelical preaching too much neglects the doctrines of Atonement and justification while emphasizing the need for the new birth, and thus unwittingly gives the impression that God tolerates sin?
Precisely.
Do you see any prospect for evangelical renewal?
I really don’t. Nothing but a great outpouring of the Spirit — which is what I meant by revival — can possibly retrieve the situation.
How would you chart the next 20 years of world history, if we have them? What will give way, and what will endure?
I’m afraid I see nothing but collapse. I think that democracy is the ultimate position politically; we’ve passed through all other forms of government But beyond democracy there now looms either dictatorship or complete chaos. The end is more likely: 666 is the number of man, and this is democracy-man worshiping himself, his own likeness. I’m not sure at all that we have 20 years. Several factors are present that have never been present before. In the past, great civilizations in various parts of the world would collapse but would not devastate the rest of the world. Today the world is one vast whole. What happens in one place happens everywhere. I think we are witnessing the breakdown of politics. I think even the world is seeing that. Civilization is collapsing.
What parting word have you for the secular man or woman who does not take Jesus Christ seriously?
I can only say: ” Flee from the wrath to come” and “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
