The conversion of John Newton

As I slowly make my way through John Newton’s memoirs, I am penetrated by “the absolute necessity of some expedient to interpose between a righteous God and a sinful soul.” That is, in the process of his conversion, he comes to see from passages like Proverbs 1.24-31 (below) and Hebrews 6.4-6 and 2 Peter 2.20 that his life has been one of laughing in the face of calamity:

“Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
because you have ignored all my counsel
and would have none of my reproof,
I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when terror strikes you,
when terror strikes you like a storm
and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you.
Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently but will not find me.
Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord,
would have none of my counsel
and despised all my reproof,
therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way,
and have their fill of their own devices.”

You can read this story in volume one of Newton’s Works (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust), 27-29. In a threatening situation at sea when he and the crew of a dozen were uncertain of ever surviving, Newton, like all mankind, cried out “Lord, have mercy upon us!” Even as his heated cry came from his lips, he knew that, given his life, there was no basis for such a cry; “what mercy can there be for me,” he morosely ponders. Not only had he used his life to make the “Gospel history,” that is, the story of the gospel of grace, “the constant subject of profane ridicule,” even now he could not say that he believed in the gospel. Indeed, he knew for certain that he, of all people, had no reason to expect to receive any mercy from God. As such, his prayer was like “the cry of ravens.”

Years later, Newton had come to realize something about his near-death experience at sea. This seemed to be an event of complete hopeless, a situation in which a poor sinner without hope comes to realize himself as a poor sinner without hope . . . and has no recourse but to lay down and die. He says that, at the time, “I waited with fear and impatience to receive my inevitable doom.” However, what he comes to see is that, even then, God was showing immeasurable grace because, says he,

“So wonderfully does the Lord proportion the discoveries of sin and grace: for he knows our frame, and that, if he were to put forth the greatness of his power, a poor sinner would be instantly overwhelmed, and crushed as a moth.”

As a more mature believer, what Newton had come to see is that during his period of deepest, darkest desperation, in actuality he really had only the slightest picture of his true need for grace. His gracious God had been proportioning His own revelation so that Newton would not be crushed by his glaring need in the face of God’s great power to judge. It is as if God said to Newton, “if I reveal my majesty to you at 90%, you will certainly see your need for grace, but you will also be crushed; so, instead, in my gracious provision for you I will display only a fraction of my majesty that you might then respond in worship.” Reading this section, I thought of Romans 2.4: “Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”

But it is Newton’s response at sea that is so gripping. Just as he knew that he had no basis to ask for mercy, he also knew that he had no basis to call God, “Father.” It was is if he could see his need for a reconciled, happy relationship with God, but he had no means of getting there. As he says, “the great question now was, how to obtain faith,” namely, “how I should gain an assurance that the Scriptures were of Divine inspiration, and a sufficient warrant for the exercise of trust and hope in God.”

Really, what he is saying is that his modest knowledge of Jesus in the Scriptures, “the particulars of his life, and of his death.” Not only this, but Newton had a knowledge that Jesus died “a death for sins not his own, but, as I remembered, for the sake of those who, in their distress, should put their trust in him.” These particulars of the gospel he knew, but he did not believe.

So, he asked for belief. His prayer for mercy was answered, because the Spirit drew his heart to no longer asked for mercy, but to ask for faith. Commenting on this, Newton saw that he was doing what Jesus commanded in Luke 11.13 when he said, “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!” Newton says,

“I concluded from thence, that, though I could not say from my heart that I believed the Gospel, yet I would, for the present, take it for granted; and that, by studying it in this light, I should be more and more confirmed in it . . . on the Gospel scheme, I saw at least a peradventure [chance] of hope; but, on every other side, I was surrounded with black, unfathomable despair.”

What Newton was asking God to do was to give him faith; Newton said to God, ‘make good your own word’ and give me your Spirit!

Just reading this section from Newton’s memoirs brings to mind four things worth noting:

• Desperation is not desperate enough. Even though Newton saw himself as a poor sinner, he had no idea of the degree to which he was in trouble! Put another way, even though Newton sensed that he was in debt beyond his wildest dreams, he was actually in debt beyond the wildest dreams of every human to ever live. God gave him a taste of his condemned state, but only but a taste.
• The proper response to desperation, for the believer and then nonbeliever, is always the gospel. Not only this, but Newton insists that the objective story of the gospel is important, even if there is no subjective belief in the gospel. The birth, life, temptations, miracles, message, trial, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus are matters that we must understand more and more.
• Related to this, biblical literacy, simple knowledge of the events of Jesus’ life, is important. What I mean is that the general demise of biblical literacy actually makes the experience of belief harder to imagine. I am certain that knowledge of the life and message of Jesus was more prevalent in my parents’ days than in my own. Even fierce critics of Christianity in the middle of the last century, through school or college humanities or Sunday school, had some apprehension of the life and message of Jesus. This knowledge is declining. However, surveying Newton’s conversion reminds me that it is good for pagans to know what it is that they do not believe.
• Finally, prayer for the Spirit’s work is, at the same time, an act of desperation and act of hope. As believers, it is not appropriate to ask our nonbelieving friends to appeal to God for His Spirit to give them faith? As they cry to God for mercy, does it not make sense that they should be appealing to this God, the Author of Life (Acts 3.15), to write this life in their souls through belief?