In 1959, Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981) preached a series of messages on the topic of revival, including one called “Revival Sermon: Dead Orthodoxy.” In the sermon, Lloyd-Jones argues that “dead orthodoxy” is the greatest threat to revival, to the church at large, and to all individual Christians.

Such an observation merits careful inquiry. What is dead orthodoxy — and how might we discern its presence in our own souls and churches?

Dead Orthodoxy

To help us get at the substance of dead orthodoxy, consider some questions:

What happens when we love the creeds and confessions of the church, but they have failed to make us more like Jesus?
What happens when right doctrine makes us haughty, gruff, impatient, and hard?
What happens when we are experts in theology but perpetual delinquents when it comes to the prayer closet?
What happens when we love doctrines more than the God whom the doctrines are about?

The answer is dead orthodoxy. Dead orthodoxy is a form of godliness, but without the attending power (2 Timothy 3:5). It is a case not of zeal without knowledge, but of knowledge without proper zeal (Romans 10:2). Paul tells Timothy to “avoid such people” (2 Timothy 3:5) — that is how serious dead orthodoxy is.

In one sense, of course, the word orthodoxy presupposes right belief, and right belief assumes warmth and vitality, producing a genuine growth in Christlikeness and love for God and man. As God’s truth works in us, a transformation takes place. This leads to more and more life, not deadness.

And yet, the phrase dead orthodoxy recognizes that it is entirely possible to have correct doctrine without a regenerate heart or a saving trust in the person of Christ. Think of the demons in the Bible. They knew the truth about Jesus and assented to Jesus’s gospel being true. But they refused to trust him. They didn’t love him. The devils believe God is one (James 2:19) — and so do many hypocrites.

Additionally, it is entirely possible to be a genuine Christian but have an inconsistent outworking of that faith in one’s life. This inconsistency can be seen in all of us to a degree. Isn’t all sin inconsistent with faith and the love of God? But sometimes a Christian’s inconsistency becomes so deep and habitual that his faith, though orthodox, looks more dead than alive. He desperately needs reviving.

Four Signs of Dead Orthodoxy

The following four signs of dead orthodoxy are not meant to help us point fingers at others’ deadness in contrast to our own liveliness. To do so would be to fall into the error that some of these signs address.

“What can you do in the boneyard of dead orthodoxy? Call upon God to revive you, to bring you back to life.”

We must first point the finger at ourselves. Where have we exhibited tendencies to deadness — to coldness, to hardness, to formalism, to theological tribalism or elitism? In what areas do we need to seek Christ’s face afresh? Dead orthodoxy certainly describes some churches, denominations, and people, but the seeds of it undoubtedly find a home in our own heart as well. In the words of Nathan the prophet, “You are the man” (2 Samuel 12:7).

Let repentance from dead orthodoxy work tenderness and warmth in our own souls first.

1. Smug Contentment

I believe the truth, I know I believe the truth, and few are as smart as I am about the truth. This smug contentment leads to an attitude that is excessively polemical, where much of my time is spent criticizing theological opponents, especially on minutia and tertiary issues. I begin to nitpick anything or anyone not in line with my views. This smugness also produces tribalism, since only my camp is right, and so I refuse to work or fellowship with other Christians — or if I do, I look down upon them.

2. Dislike of Enthusiasm

This sign appears when the cold, proper, and intellectual is preferred to the fervent, excited, and exuberant. Dry academic lectures become preferable to preaching that is searching, close, or (as the Puritans described it) “painful.” Lloyd-Jones goes so far as to say that “dislike of enthusiasm is to quench the Spirit,” and that “this charge of enthusiasm is the one that has always been brought against people who have been most active in a period of revival” (Revival, 72–73).

Along with this dislike comes an inordinate fear of disorder. Those with this dislike can easily become rigid and inflexible, even in matters not limited by the Scriptures. Because of wild revivalists of the past, too much talk of revival or Spirit-led spontaneity is frowned upon as sheer emotionalism, animal excitement, or mass hysteria. Lloyd-Jones comments, “There are churches that are orthodox, but absolutely dead, because they are so afraid of false excitement, and the excesses of certain spiritual movements, that they quench and hinder the Spirit and deny the true” (78).

3. Pining for Social Acceptance

Someone overly concerned with social acceptance cannot stand to be considered a radical, an enthusiast, a fanatic, or a fundamentalist, and so he becomes overly proper. This concern often focuses on moralism and not rocking the social boat. It is dignified and prim, but it knows little about the cross as “folly to those who are perishing” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Such moved J.C. Ryle to comment,

There is a generation that loathes everything like zeal in religion. There are never wanting men of a cautious, cold-blooded, Erasmus-like temper, who pass through the world doing no good, because they are so dreadfully afraid of doing harm. I do not expect such men to admire Whitefield, or allow he did any good. I fear, if they had lived eighteen hundred years ago, they would have had no sympathy with St. Paul. (A Sketch of the Life and Labors of George Whitefield, 34)

This attitude may even treat evangelism as distasteful because it offends people and causes trouble. Shouldn’t we mind our own business? Shouldn’t we stay quiet about the gospel since it stirs up anger and hostility?

4. Denial of the Miraculous

Some may think, God can still work in history, but let’s not expect anything too extreme. God stopped doing that a long time ago. This attitude is symptomatic of our secular age and society. Christians in the West are in regular danger of acting like deists or mere rationalists. We don’t typically deal with problems of animism and voodoo — we deal with atheism, scientism, Darwinian evolution, and secular humanism. We deal with materialism and the ramifications of Enlightenment thought.

Such views so dominate our society that their influence can find a home in our hearts and in our churches. Syncretism is not just a blending of animistic and pagan religions with Christianity. Syncretism can also blend the Western religions of evolution, humanism, and scientism with the Christian faith. This blending leads to a distrust of the supernatural.

Cure for Dead Orthodoxy

If you see any of these tendencies in yourself, how should you respond? Ultimately, hope is only found outside of ourselves. Only Jesus can rescue us from such peril. We must keep turning back to him, who is the perfect example of right affection, right practice, and right belief fused together.

Perhaps your deadness is so deep that you fear you are not yet alive in Christ. Seek the Lord while he may be found. He can take out your stony heart and give you a heart of flesh, one alive and sensitive to the things of God. He gives sight to the blind. He is the friend of sinners. He came to seek and to save the lost.

Or maybe you have had seasons of sweet communion in the past, but now you feel dry and busy. Your faith has become nominal. Like the church in Sardis, you may have had a reputation of being alive, but now you find yourself dead (Revelation 3:1). Jesus tells this church to “wake up!” (Revelation 3:2). What can you do in the boneyard of dead orthodoxy? Call upon God to revive you, to bring you back to life.

Wherever you are, go to him today. Call on him now, without waiting. Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13).

The scene was reminiscent of a scary movie. Julia walked out to the church parking lot and found an ominous note taped to her car window: “I SEE YOU!”

Though she thought I was hundreds of miles away, I was actually nearby, watching the entire scene unfold. When she began to nervously look around, I took that as my cue and drove up next to her. As she stared in shock, I asked in the smoothest way possible, “Wanna take a ride?” (Yes, I had rehearsed it many times.) She joyfully got in the car, and a few hours later, I got down on one knee and asked if she would marry me. She said yes.

The cryptic three-word message was actually not the way I intended to start the morning. I had crafted the perfect poem to start our engagement day, but it got lost somewhere between my hotel and the church. With only a few seconds to write something, “I SEE YOU!” was all I could come up with.

We used to think our engagement was perfect except for those hastily written three words. Ironically, after 22 years of marriage, that note has become one of our favorite parts of the day. In fact, one of our marriage goals is to regularly and intentionally communicate what first happened on accident: “I see you.” While many fantasize about falling in love at first sight, we’ve discovered a better dream: a marriage that furthers love with each additional sight.

God Saw

It took a few years of marriage before I realized the power of sight as a way to pursue Julia. Up to that point, I was focused on developing my listening skills. Then, right when I began to make progress on that, God revealed (in perfect Godlike fashion) a new need for development: looking skills. We get a glimpse of the power of sight in the way God describes Israel’s suffering in Egypt:

God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel — and God knew. (Exodus 2:24–25)

By developing our listening and looking skills, we unlock a powerful combination in our marriages. When we listen, we communicate that our wife has been heard. When we look, we communicate that she is known and understood.

Unfortunately, far too many wives are overwhelmed with a sense of loneliness. Day after day, they feel invisible to the man they love. When I reflect on my own marriage and the real reasons why I don’t actively bless my wife as God intends, I admit that one of my main obstacles is optical. I don’t actually see what’s happening around me because I’m not really looking.

Savior with Wide Eyes

My breakthrough started with a study on all that Jesus noticed. Our Savior walked through life with eyes wide open. Jesus noticed Nathaniel under a tree (John 1:48) and Zacchaeus up in a tree (Luke 19:5). He noticed John’s disciples following at a distance (John 1:38) and the touch of one desperate woman while the masses pressed around him (Luke 8:45). Jesus watched in moments we think you shouldn’t, such as when the poor widow put all she had into the offering treasury (Luke 21:1–4). He also watched in moments we know we couldn’t, such as when he himself was the offering.

Even as he hung on the cross in intense agony, his eyes looked beyond his own suffering and responded with love. He prayed for those who crucified him (Luke 23:34), comforted a criminal next to him (Luke 23:43), and cared for his loved ones there for him (John 19:26–27). And through it all, Jesus kept his eyes on the work of his Father (John 5:19–20). Simply put, Jesus’s entire life and ministry deliberately and compassionately communicated, “I see you.”

I don’t wake each day with the burden to perfect who Jesus is for my wife, but I do rise with the great privilege to reflect him.

Three Paths to Better Sight

Empowered by the truth that God keeps me as “the apple of [his] eye” (Psalm 17:8), I made the commitment to be a man who takes literally the command that “each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4). Over the years, I have landed on three practices that promote a marriage culture that sees: stop, scribe, and speak.

STOP

When Moses discovered a bush on fire yet not consumed, he stopped to see what was going on. What happens next is worth reading slowly: “When the Lord saw that [Moses] turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’” (Exodus 3:4). When Moses stopped to see, the Lord started to lead. I believe the same principle is true for each of us in our various relationships, whether with God, wife, or children. When we stop to see, the Lord may start to lead.

Apart from praying, I can’t think of a more effective use of my time than to stop what I’m doing and think about what I’m seeing in the life of my bride. These moments are always beneficial, and the main requirement is that I create the space with a curious spirit.

SCRIBE

After taking the time to stop, I embrace the mindset of a scribe, taking notes on what I’m seeing. My observations are usually focused under a few main categories:

What makes her happy or sad?
What are her consistent dreams or disappointments?
What relaxes her or increases her stress?
What has she mentioned that could be a great “just because” gift?

I’m both excited and embarrassed when I go to scribe. The excitement comes from the awareness that God is leading; I’m seeing things! The embarrassment comes from reading previous observations and recognizing how quickly and easily they slipped my mind. But at least I see them again, because I’m a scribe. I encourage you to write what you see, because there is power in the pen (Deuteronomy 17:18).

SPEAK

Last, after taking the time to stop and scribe what I see, I speak.

My first words are to God on Julia’s behalf. Genesis 25:21 tells us, “Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived.” I love the simple words “Isaac prayed . . . because she was . . .” As a prayer prompt, I will write these very words on a page and fill in the blank with as many things that come to mind: “Matty prayed . . . because Julia was . . .” Sentences like this give me a practical way to take all that I have seen and speak them to the One who cares for my wife most. Perhaps you don’t need a prompt like this to inspire you, but I sure do. I fear becoming the kind of husband of whom it could be written, “Matty did not pray for his wife, but she was . . .”

While the first words are spoken to God, additional words often come later. When I consistently stop to see, I find that my speech to Julia routinely lands with substance and strength. While I never assume the ability “to sustain with a word him who is weary” (Isaiah 50:4), I am keenly aware of where that ability comes from. Speaking such words begins with hearing (Isaiah 50:4), and hearing often begins with seeing (Exodus 3:4). This is the life-giving power that a husband kick-starts when he simply takes the time to see.

The part of the country we call home is adjacent to the Appalachian Trail, with some of the nation’s most beautiful viewpoints. Typically, the higher you go, the more clearly you see. For me, cultivating the simple yet consistent practice to stop, scribe, and speak is akin to walking up three giant steps that give me a higher, more breathtaking view of how good and generous God has been to me through my wife. It’s amazing what you can see when you are looking!

What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.