A. J. Gordon

Reprinted with permission from As I See It, which is available free by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com.

Ecce Venit: Behold He Cometh by A. J. Gordon. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1889. 311 pp., hardback.

A. J. Gordon (1836-1895), college- and seminary-trained New Hampshire native and for a quarter century pastor of Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston, was unusual among his peers in that he, in large part under the influence of Plymouth Brethren writers (“Darbyites”) embraced pre-millennialism and dispensationalism (post-millennialism and a-millennialism were both widely and commonly held).

He participated in the famous Niagara conferences which were mostly focused on promoting the pre-millennial coming of Christ. Gordon strongly affirms the literal, personal and physical pre-millennial coming of Christ followed by a literal 1,000 year earthly reign of the King of Kings, and points out the errors of interpretation of other views, especially post-millennialism, with its Pollyannaish hyper-optimism about the progressive conversion of the whole world to Christ, with a concurrent improvement of all earthly conditions, including man’s fallen nature.

Reprinted with permission from As I See It, which is available free by writing to the editor at dkutilek@juno.com.

A. J. Gordon (1836-1895) was one of the pre-eminent Baptist pastors in America in his day, zealous for evangelism and missions, and a prolific author of pre-millennial sentiments. His analysis of his great English contemporary, Charles H. Spurgeon, is noteworthy.

“To have the ear of the people is a great thing, and much to be coveted by the minister of the gospel, if only it be certain that God has the minister’s ear. If it be not so, and the preacher has thousands hanging on his lips, who himself does not hang on God’s lips with the daily cry, ‘Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth,’ it may be a calamity. In other words, popularity without piety—the magnetism which draws the people, without the communion which draws daily supplies of truth and inspiration from God—is not to be envied.