Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ

by Tony Reinke

“Hungering and thirsting for Christ is the central daily Christian discipline”—to see him clearly and to depend “on him for hourly supplies of wisdom, strength, and comfort.”

John Newton’s vision for the Christian life centers on the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ.

If there is one point of self-understanding Newton lived with, it is that his salvation could never have originated within himself. Grace broke his life just as powerfully as an unexpected ocean storm broke his security.

For Newton, the Christian life could only be explained by God’s sustaining grace. Grace saved his wretched soul. Grace sought him out. Grace removed his spiritual blindness and opened his spiritual eyes. Grace taught him to fear God. Grace relieved his fears. Grace led him to hope. The life and ministry of Newton can all fit under the banner of grace—God’s abundant, all-sufficient, infinite, sovereign, unceasing, and amazing grace.

nothing from the pen of Newton endures like this hymn. Amazon.com currently sells the song in 12,700 different versions. It has been recorded in every genre, including jazz, country, folk, classical, R&B, hip-hop—even heavy metal! The popularity of the hymn is obvious at sporting events and political rallies, among other settings. It endures as one of few religious songs that can be sung impromptu in public because many people (if not most people) can recite at least the first verse by heart.

He became an apologist of God’s free and unmerited favor and devoted his life to confirming God’s grace and applying the promises of Scripture to the lives of his parishioners, his acquaintances, and his friends; and he did so through songs, sermons, and personal letters.

Grace alone is powerful enough to break the sinner’s bondage to wickedness. “His grace can overcome the most obstinate habits.”15 Grace breaks in to free and unshackle souls. Grace takes away the guilt of sin, the love of sin, and the dominion of sin, even hard sins like drunkenness.

Understanding God’s sovereign grace at the front end of the Christian life is critical for understanding the rest of the Christian life, because we are certain to face personal sin and insufficiency all throughout the Christian journey.

This is not merely adequate grace, but all-sufficient grace. No matter how large and daunting the circumstance or need, grace is always larger and stronger and more fully sufficient to meet each battle or trial in the Christian life.

Grace welcomes us to look into our emptiness and personal weakness because our strength and security is outside of us, in God’s all-sufficient grace. Our owning of personal weakness is one of the results of the active presence of grace. And our weakness is how we broadcast the grace of God to others.

If you have Christ, you have all of Christ, and to have all of Christ is to have free access to Christ’s all-sufficient grace.

Grace is shorthand for the full and free access we have to all the merits and power and promises to be found in the person of our Savior (John 1:16–17; Eph. 2:7; 1 Cor. 1:4; 2 Cor. 8:9; 2 Tim. 2:1).

“My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior.”

“Our sins are many, but his mercies are more: our sins are great, but his righteousness is greater.”

While Newton was fully convinced of the importance of the Trinitarian nature of God (the “adorable Trinity” as he calls it, or worthy of all adoration10), he believed that the divinity of Christ is “the great foundation-stone upon which all true religion is built.”11 Perhaps Newton could have placed greater emphasis on the Holy Spirit in his ministry, but he operated with this conviction: since there is no jealousy within the triune God, it is impossible to overpraise the Son or to dishonor the Father or Spirit in the adoration of Christ.12 Christ incarnate is the full revelation of God in the flesh.

“Jesus is always near, about our path by day, and our bed by night; nearer than the light by which we see, or the air we breathe; nearer than we are to ourselves; so that not a thought, a sigh, or a tear, escaped his notice.”

Only Christ reconciles us to God and delivers peace with a holy God as the highest manifestation of his friendship.

The treasury of life and salvation in Christ is inexhaustible, like a boundless, shoreless, bottomless ocean; like the sun, which having cheered the successive generations of mankind with his beams, still shines with undiminished luster, is still the fountain of light, and has always a sufficiency to fill innumerable millions of eyes in the same instant.

The person of Jesus Christ is the source of all grace (chap. 1). He is also the center, goal, and aim—the motto—of the Christian life (chap. 2). Christ both empowers and aims everything about the Christian life. These two core principles unlock Newton’s works and help us understand the daily disciplines of prayer, Scripture reading, and pursuing communion with God.

“‘None but Jesus,’ is my motto. All wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and happiness, which does not spring from and center in him, my soul desires to renounce.”

But since the Savior I have known My rules are all reduc’d to one, To keep my Lord, by faith, in view; This strength supplies, and motives too.

When we open our Bibles and read divine words, we are illuminated by the power of the Holy Spirit and awakened once again to see and to delight in Christ’s glory. In Christ we find spiritual nourishment for the soul: soul-sustaining happiness, pleasure, and joy; the very power and foundation for everything else in the Christian life—life in the fullest meaning of the term! In beholding Christ’s glory, we are changed into his image and “then our hearts melt, our eyes flow, our stammering tongues are unloosed.”

“It is by looking to Jesus that the believer is enlightened and strengthened and grows in grace and sanctification.”

When Newton focused on the person of Christ, he centered on the roles of Christ as Shepherd, Husband, Friend, Prophet, Priest, and King. But when Newton focused on his faith in Christ, he focused on three realities: Christ’s death, resurrection, and ongoing reign. We look to Christ as the Savior who hung on the cross for our sins; we look to Christ who was raised victoriously on Easter; and we look to Christ in his eternal sovereign reign now in heaven.

The Christian life is Christ—a truth that deeply reassures our souls, focuses our hearts, and simplifies our spiritual lives. But it’s a calling that we perpetually fumble. The veil removed from our eyes in conversion gives way to clouds over our eyes in trials and sleepiness in our steps with the spiritual disciplines. The greatest challenges we face are Christ-clouding distractions. Even from within a busy life of family and work and responsibilities and complexities and ambiguities, the Christian must daily reorient his life to Christ. “Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11), and our calling is to “rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil. 4:4). Whatever life throws our way, we must keep Christ in view— in afflictions, imperfections, temptations, and desertions; yet he [Paul] says, always; which can only be practiced by those who see and keep in mind that they are complete in Christ; that he is all in all to them; their Righteousness, Wisdom and Strength; their Sun and Shield; their Friend and Representative before the throne; their Shepherd and their Husband.

With pleasing grief and mournful joy My spirit now is fill’d, That I should such a life destroy, Yet live by him I kill’d.

The Christian life flows from hourly communion with Christ because “the more you know him, the better you will trust him; the more you trust him, the better you will love him; the more you love him, the better you will serve him.”

To view him as God manifest in the flesh, as all in all in himself, and all in all for us; this is cheering, this is strengthening, this makes hard things easy, and bitter things sweet. This includes all I can wish for my dear friends, that you may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Jesus. To know him, is the shortest description of true grace; to know him better, is the surest mark of growth in grace; to know him perfectly, is eternal life. This is the prize of our high calling; the sum and substance of all we can desire or hope for is, to see him as he is, and to be like him: and to this honor and happiness he will surely bring all that love his name.

In the gospel-simple life we do not live to please men; we live to please the Lord alone. As Puritan Thomas Boston (1676–1732) said it, “Men-pleasers, and those who please Christ, divide the whole world.”32 Sometimes that division becomes very clear, and in those times gospel simplicity causes our tension with the world. There are two ways to live, and the Christian who seeks to live a life pleasing to God finds himself uncomfortably out of place in this world at times.

I wish we may learn from all our changes, to be sober and watchful, not to rest in grace received, in experience or comforts, but still to be pressing forward, and never think ourselves either safe or happy, but when we are beholding the glory of Christ by the light of faith in the glass of the Gospel. To view him as God manifest in the flesh, as all in all in himself, and all in all for us; this is cheering, this is strengthening, this makes hard things easy, and bitter things sweet. This includes all I can wish for my dear friends, that you may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Jesus. To know him, is the shortest description of true grace; to know him better, is the surest mark of growth in grace; to know him perfectly, is eternal life. This is the prize of our high calling; the sum and substance of all we can desire or hope for is, to see him as he is, and to be like him: and to this honor and happiness he will surely bring all that love his name.

There is little danger in thinking lowly of ourselves. The ever-present danger faced by the Christian is thinking too lowly of Christ. Christ is our identity, not indwelling sin.

The mature Christian life is marked by a daily return to the Lamb of God and diligent Bible reading, not merely as a daily discipline, but as a means to lead to heart-satisfying delight in the all-sufficient Savior. The mature Christian prays not out of a sense of mere duty, but because the all-sufficiency of Christ draws him to ask and plead in confidence. He listens intently to sermons because he awaits a glimpse of the precious Savior. The more he sees of Christ, the more he seeks by the means of grace (Scripture reading, prayer, and fellowship with the gathered church). His spiritual life is structured by discipline.

When Newton’s stages of maturity are put together, they form a robust picture of Christian growth. In order to see the stages, it may be helpful to briefly review the categories individually: Maturity moves away from a self-centered life and toward a gospel-simple, God-centered orientation aimed at God’s glory. Maturity moves away from a circumstantially centered roller coaster of emotions and toward a disciplined life rooted in daily spiritual habits. Maturity moves away from a legalistic, works-oriented relationship with God and toward a stable, gospel-centered security in Christ. Maturity moves away from a self-centered evaluation of the assurance of salvation and toward a firm confidence in Christ as the ground of assurance. Maturity moves away from exalted thoughts of self and toward lower and more humbled opinions of self and greater awareness of the remaining sin within. Maturity moves away from the impulse to correct others in harsh arrogance and toward a humbled and loving correction of others motivated by a deep sense of the worth of souls. Maturity moves away from a fearful apprehension about life’s circumstances and toward a confidence in God’s sovereign orchestration over every detail in life. Maturity moves away from worldly securities and toward an increasing willingness to leave this world in the Lord’s timing.

Jesus, source of excellence! All thy glorious love reveal! Kingdoms shall not bribe me hence, While this happiness I feel.

Newton was compelled to preach at least two sermons against the slave trade: “I considered it not in a political but in a moral view, from Jeremiah 2:34–35,” he explained to a friend, because if abolition fails to pass, I shall fear not only for the poor slaves, but for ourselves. For I think if men refuse to vindicate the oppressed, the Lord will take their cause into his own hands. And the consequences may be dreadful both abroad and at home, whatever mischiefs may arise from hurricanes, insurrections, etc. etc., I shall attribute to this cause.

There’s a time and season for a preacher to address the nation’s immoralities, even if such an act appears to some to be politically motivated activism. Would Newton preach against the proabortion movement and the prohomosexual agenda today? Would he support grassroots political engagement motivated by Christian moral convictions? I would guess so, but I’m also certain Newton would eagerly warn us about the political bickering of Querulus and the blistering, politically motivated sermons that declare to the world, “The greatest need for this nation is a power shift in political parties.” This is a false hope. Rather, the church should protect her contemporary opportunity to proclaim to the world, “The greatest problem we face as a nation is our sin, and the only ultimate solution is Christ crucified.”

A minister’s hands are strengthened when he can point to his people as so many living proofs that the doctrines he preaches are doctrines according to godliness; when they walk in mutual love; when each one, in their several places, manifests an humble, spiritual, upright, conduct; when they are Christians, not only at church but in the family, the shop, and the field; when they fill up their relations in life, as husbands or wives, masters or servants, parents or children, according to the rule of the word; when they are evidently a people separated from the world while conversant in it, and are careful to let their light shine before men, not only by talking, but by acting as the disciples of Christ.

John Newton claimed to have endured only “light and few” afflictions throughout his life, but if we compare a typical twenty-first-century experience with his eighteenth-century existence, we uncover a few particularly challenging afflictions that shaped Newton’s truly difficult life.

If the Christian’s trials are designed by God (and they are), and if the Christian’s salvation is secure in Christ (and it is), then no trial is the experience of God’s punitive wrath poured out on us for our sins. “There is no sting in your rod, nor wrath in your cup.”

Trials give new life to prayer, Trials lay us at his feet, Lay us low and keep us there.

The truth is that God designs trials for Christians, and those trials, says Newton, “are not the tokens of God’s displeasure, but fatherly chastisements, and tokens of his love, designed to promote the work of grace in their hearts, and to make them partakers of his holiness.”53 In the furnace, we must be aware of Satan’s designs aimed at unnecessarily aggravating the pain and embittering us toward God. In trials, we battle for the truth, battle for trust, battle to embrace trials.

In a pair of sermons titled “On Searching the Scriptures” (John 5:39), Newton explains how four elements inform our approach to the Bible—sincerity, diligence, humility, and prayer. As we might expect, Newton introduces his approach with the language of sincerity. I mean a real desire to be instructed by the Scripture, and to submit both our sentiments and our practices to be controlled and directed by what we read there. Without this, our reading and searching will only issue in our greater condemnation, and bring us under the heavy doom of the servant that knew his master’s will and did it not.

Finally, we approach the Bible in prayer. Sincerity, diligence, and humility are all gifts from God, and therefore a right approach to Scripture presses us toward prayer. “Prayer is indeed the best half of our business while upon earth, and that which gives spirit and efficacy to all the rest. Prayer is not only our immediate duty, but the highest dignity, the richest privilege we are capable of receiving on this side of eternity.”7 One of Newton’s hymns captures what we participate in when we pray: Thou art coming to a King, Large petitions with thee bring; For his grace and pow’r are such, None can ever ask too much.

Newton invested much prayer and preparation in preaching Christ from the Old Testament.

It is thus the Scriptures, to help the weakness of our apprehensions, testify of Christ, under the threefold view of Prophet, Priest, and King of his people. These are his principal and leading characters, which include and imply the rest; for the time would fail to speak of him, as he is declared to be their Head, Husband, Root, Foundation, Sun, Shield, Shepherd, Lawgiver, Exemplar, and Forerunner. In brief, there is hardly any comfortable relation, or useful office, amongst men; hardly any object in the visible creation, which either displays beauty, or produces benefit, but what is applied in the word of God, to illustrate the excellence and sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ. The intent of all is, that we may learn to trust him, and delight to serve him; for these must go together.

By loving the Bible we behold Christ, and by beholding Christ we take hold of power for all outlets of the Christian life. Newton wrote of this biblical empowering of Christians: The word of God dwells richly in them, is a preservative from error, a light to their feet, and a spring of strength and consolation. By treasuring up the doctrines, precepts, promises, examples, and exhortations of Scripture, in their minds, and daily comparing themselves with the rule by which they walk, they grow into an habitual frame of spiritual wisdom, and acquire a gracious taste, which enables them to judge of right and wrong with a degree of readiness and certainty, as a musical ear judges of sounds.

Awareness of Scripture tunes our inclinations so that we can make small decisions of obedience every day.

Scripture, than to read it through from beginning to end; and, when we have finished it once, to begin it again. We shall meet with many passages which we can make little improvement of, but not so many in the second reading as in the first, and fewer in the third than in the second.

Precious Bible! what a treasure Does the word of God afford! All I want for life or pleasure, FOOD and MED’CINE, SHIELD and SWORD: Let the world account me poor, Having this I need no more. FOOD to which the world’s a stranger, Here my hungry soul enjoys; Of excess there is no danger, Though it fills, it never cloys: On a dying Christ I feed, He is meat and drink indeed!

“There is no right knowledge of God where the Bible is not known.”