The Balance of Experience and Doctrine

The following is an excerpt from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life in Christ: Studies in 1 John (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2002), 399-403. Dr. Lloyd-Jones is here speaking on 1 John 4:1: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world" (ESV).

The trouble with us as the result of sin is that we always seem to delight in extremes, and we tend to go from one extreme to the other instead of maintaining the position of scriptural balance. That seems to be the tendency of mankind, and perhaps it has never manifested itself more, and more often, than concerning this very subject which faces us as we look at this verse. The subject is the whole problem of the place of the Holy Spirit in Christian experience. Or if you prefer, there is a more particular problem here, and that is the problem of the respective places of experience and doctrine in the Christian life: experience, doctrine, and the Holy Spirit.  

Now the trouble has generally been due to the fact that people have emphasized either experience or doctrine at the expense of the other, and indeed they have often been guilty, and still are, of putting up as contrasts things which clearly are meant to be complementary. This is something which has been happening in the Church almost from the very beginning..... And thus when the whole emphasis is placed upon one or the other, you have either a tendency to fanaticism and excesses or a tendency toward a barren intellectualism and a mechanical and a dead kind of orthodoxy.... It is all the result of putting the whole emphasis on one or the other instead of seeing that the two are essential.... 

The only true scriptural position - namely, the one we have here, the position which emphasizes Spirit and doctrine, experience and definition. You must not say it is either/or; it is both.... I suggest that in many ways it is one of the most acute problems confronting the Church at the present time....  

[There is a movement] which is merely concerned about doctrine and spends most of its time in teaching doctrine. There we see the tendency to pure intellectualism, a concern about truth in the abstract, about definitions and ideas, and to stop at that. 

But then there is another movement, and there is always this opposite movement. There is a great tendency on the part of many to stress only the experimental side - the experiencing side, and to talk only about the gifts of the Spirit and the various manifestations of life and religion, as they call it....  

As Evangelicals we find ourselves fighting on two fronts. We are obviously critical of a pure intellectualism and of a dead mechanical Church which lacks any life.... We say, "It is not enough for people to be church members." We ask, "Are they born again? Have they evidence within them of the life of God in their soul?" We say we are not concerned about a mere theoretical belief; the gospel of Jesus Christ is a life-giving gospel. That is one side; but on the other side we see certain tendencies and we see certain excesses and we say, "Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God." And thus we seem to be opposing everything, and so we receive criticism from all sides.   

Now we are not concerned merely about our own position; we are concerned primarily about the truth. But let me say this. It seems to me that we have a right to be fairly happy about ourselves as long as we have criticism from both sides; but if the criticism should ever stop on one side, then is the time to be careful. 

For myself, as long as I am charged by certain people with being nothing but a Pentecostalist and on the other hand charged by others with being an intellectual, a man who is always preaching doctrine, as long as the two criticisms come, I am very happy. But if the one or the other of the two criticisms should ever cease, then, I say, is the time to be careful and to begin to examine the very foundations.   

The position of Scripture, as I am trying to show you, is one which is facing two extremes; the Spirit is essential, and experience is vital; however, truth and definition and doctrine and dogma are equally vital and essential. And our whole position is one which proclaims that experience which is not based solidly upon truth and doctrine is dangerous.

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