Living in the Shadow of Grace – Meditations from G. Campbell Morgan

Several weeks ago, I received a review copy of a recent work on one of my favorite preachers of the past, G. Campbell Morgan. I was thrilled at the prospect of reading a new work on his life and ministry, but I had no idea how timely the material would be for my own personal life and ministry. Between the time the book arrived and the time I actually sat down to read it for this review, the Lord saw fit to initiate my wife and I into His special school of spiritual refinement. At the end of last April my wife, Beth, was diagnosed with a fairly advanced case of aggressive breast cancer. The ramifications of that discovery launched our family on a journey down the dark path of suffering traveled by so many of God’s faithful people in the past. One such individual who journeyed down this terrible but wonderful path was G. Campbell Morgan, whose musings and mediations along the journey were preserved in his journals and messages. Fortunately for God’s people, his grandsons have labored to collect and arrange those musings into a short book published by Baker Books entitled In the Shadow of Grace: The Life and Meditations of G. Campbell Morgan.

Although the editors drew heavily from the well-known biography by Jill Morgan entitled A Man of the Word, they also had access to many private letters and other material not readily available to the general public. One of the editors, Howard Morgan, is currently the chairman of the Chicago Theological Seminary and has arranged for the seminary to house a collection of Morgan’s books, periodicals, unpublished manuscripts, and other materials that would be of interest to researchers and those interested in all things Morgan. Unfortunately, some of the theological leanings of the seminary seem to have infiltrated the book leaving the reader to wonder whether Morgan would have been as excited about the prospect of an award in his name going to two women preachers as those who have set him forth to be their best-known graduate. Additionally, some of Morgan’s lesser-known theological oddities are presented in a fashion that perhaps sets them forth in a different light than Morgan would have presented them. Interestingly, when such views are presented, they are often in paragraphs where a great deal of elliptical phraseology occurs. A case in point is the way Morgan’s views regarding the eternal destiny of the lost are presented (p. 48, 69). Morgan definitely held to a view on this issue that would not be espoused by any theologically conservative reader of this column. However, having read many of Morgan’s published works and sermons, I was surprised to see how boldly this view was presented. In fairness to Morgan, he was writing and speaking to people during a time of war and was answering questions related to the fate of sons and fathers of members in his congregation. Though the error of his views can’t be defended, understanding the context in which they were given might provide some balance in understanding why Morgan spoke the way he did on this matter.

These blemishes aside, the rest of the book is a wonderful example of Morgan’s pastoral ministry to people in times of suffering. People suffering through every sort of trial or sorrow can find some nugget of spiritual blessing to encourage their hearts and lift their souls. For example, to those whose soul is afflicted by doubt, Morgan speaks from an experience in his own ministry where early on he passed through a time of serious doubt where his faith was almost eclipsed by rationalism. Having passed through this valley, here are his words to fellow pilgrims: “Find your way to Christ for yourself, not to the Christ of the preacher, or of the schoolmen, or of ecclesiastical systems, or the Christ of the whole Church, but the Christ of the new Testament. Tell Him all your doubts, and griefs, and fears, and you will know He is the living One speaking through His Word as surely as He spoke directly to Thomas and in Him alone, you will find the rest for which you are seeking” (p. 26).

To those facing serious illness or even the loss of a loved one, Morgan too had passed this way ahead of them and left behind this choice paragraph: “Affliction is that experience of the soul in which a man is brought to the end of self-confidence, because he is brought absolutely to the end of his strength. Sometimes the experience is wrought physically; sometimes without physical disease, it is wholly mental and spiritual. But whether by this method or by the other, the consciousness is that of the destruction of strength, of being weakened by the way, of being brought into that position where hope for the moment dies out. The great procession marches on without you; you are left wounded, halted, bruised, and helpless in the way. There is a sense in which hope is not dead in your heart. You believe the thing for which you hoped will yet to be achieved, but you yourself are left at the point where there is no more strength in you, and all self-confidence naturally and necessarily dies” (p. 58).

In another section describing Morgan’s struggle with growing old, the editors give us this choice statement: “By this crippling I (Jacob) have come to crowning. By this breaking I have come to making. There in the darkness has come upon me a hand mightier than my own; a force has taken hold of me and broken me, and yet out of it I have come into a new place of power, a new place of life. I have yielded and am crowned. I have been bent and set on high. I have been mastered and have become master. So God brought him to realize his own weakness, and revealed to him the secret of all strength” (p. 99).

In one of the final sermons he preached at Westminster shortly before his death, Morgan touched on the theme of suffering yet again, and from that message comes a statement that is a fitting description of his overall advice to those traveling this dark path in different ways and at different seasons of life. “I arrive nowhere but that God has been ahead of me . . . there is some man, some woman, some youth or some maiden, buffeted, broken, perplexed, lonely, almost mad with the agony of life . . . God was ahead of you. Out of the terror of the hour He is creating forces of triumph in your life which would always have been missing, had you not pitched your tent right there where He has appointed the place” (p. 113).

Reading Morgan on any topic is always profitable. However, in this particular area of the Christian journey, Morgan’s messages and flashes of insight are particularly laden with blessing. May you find the comfort Morgan found as he points you to consider well the grace of God that shines in dark places from His Word.