INTRODUCTION
Miles J.
Stanford’s book, The Complete Green
Letters, is a compilation of five smaller books, all designed to lead the
reader into a deeper Christian life. The
author’s aim in the sections to be reviewed “is to carefully bring out some of
the more important principles of spiritual growth, to help the reader build on
a solid biblical foundation in Christ,” and to analyze the principle of
position in Christ on which “all spiritual growth is built.”[1]
Miles J.
Stanford was a Christian writer during the last half of the 20th
century, and an avid proponent of dispensationalism and “the Growth Truths of
Romans 6-8.” Through prolific
correspondence with American Christians while he was in Europe in the military,
Stanford developed a corpus of letters that has now been was compiled as The Green Letters in 1963.[2] Stanford left this life for the next in 1999.
SUMMARY
The
Complete Green Letters is the amalgamation of five books, divided into
sixty-nine brief chapters (two of which are more like appendices, delineating
the five points of Calvinism and Armenianism).
Part One includes Chapters 1-8, and is entitled Principles of Spiritual Growth.
Part Two, Foundations of Spiritual
Growth, includes Chapters 19-28.
Parts Three, Four and Five, which are not within the scope of this
paper, are entitled The Ground of Growth,
The Realization of Spiritual Growth, and A Guide to Spiritual Growth, and include Chapters 29-39, 40-54, and
55-71, respectively.
In The Ground of Growth, Stanford works to instill in his readers a
deeper understanding of the scriptural truths that function as the basis for a
living, Christian faith. In the first
chapter, simply titled Faith, he
makes a statement that is fundamental to the entire approach of the book:
“Unless our faith is established on facts, it is no more than conjecture,
superstition, speculation, or presumption.”[3] This statement, rather obvious on the
surface, gains profundity as the book progresses. A variety of these fundamental facts are
elucidated in the chapters that follow, including faith, time, acceptance
purpose, and preparation. The next
building blocks of faith that are discussed are completeness in Christ, appropriation,
identification with Christ, consecration, self, and self-denial. Next, discussions of the cross,
discipleship, the process of discipleship are covered. Stanford finishes the section by covering
rest, help, cultivation, and continuance.
The brevity of the chapters (both in their titles and number of pages)
should not be construed as indicating simplistic writing or shallowness of
thought. What lies within each is a
highly detailed, often profound, discussion of these fundamentals that serves
to imprint on the reader’s mind the bedrock beliefs of the Christian faith.
Part Two, Foundations of Spiritual Growth, covers the Christian’s position in
Christ. Having been written as a separate book, Part Two does not explicitly
build upon Part One, but the tenets of the faith explored in the former are
fundamental to the propositions in the latter.
A distinction is made early on that is fundamental to the
discussion. This distinction is between position and condition. The former is
immutable, while the latter is changeable.
Position, according to Stanford, is “the source of our Christian life .
. . perfect . . . eternally established in the Father’s presence.” By contrast, condition is defined as “what we
are in our Christian walk, in which we develop from infancy to maturity.”[4] Six aspects of the position of the believer
are discussed, followed by a four-part discussion of sin. The author seeks to persuade the reader to
consider their position in terms of justification, assurance, reconciliation,
acceptance, completeness, security, sanctification, consecration,
identification and growth. The section
concludes with chapters on the experience of, and relationship to, sin in the
life of the believer.
CRITIQUE
The Complete Green Letters is very different reading
than most of the books I have encountered before. The brevity of the chapters can be difficult
at first, as it results in the author condensing many deep ideas into
relatively few paragraphs. The style of
the chapters is reminiscent of books like The
Imitation of Christ, in which a chapter can hardly be digested before it is
over and on to the next point. Given that both are compilations, rather
than works written as a whole, this is understandable. However, it may leave the casual reader
feeling confused and frustrated by the style.
As one becomes more familiar with the work, the profundity of the ideas begins
to penetrate the mind, and create a chain of realization that is both beautiful
and edifying.
Each chapter of the book is chock full of memorable
statements that drive the chapter’s point home to the reader. In chapter 4, for example, Stanford wrote
regarding Romans 8:28-29, “When we see that all things are working together to
make us more and more like the Lord Jesus, we will not be frustrated and upset
when some of these ‘things’ are hard, difficult to understand, and often
contain an element of death”[5]
and “[o]ne of God’s most effective means in the process is failure.”[6] In a his particularly provocative chapter on
“Help,” Watchman Nee is quoted: “God sets us free from the dominion of sin, not
by not by strengthening our old man, but by crucifying him; not by helping him
to do anything but by removing him from the scene of action.”[7]
One potential weakness of the work, particularly for
someone used to reading well-sourced, scholarly material, is the abundance of
lengthy quotes, often without citation.
Many chapters, especially in Part One, are comprised nearly entirely of
quotes, with only an author’s name as the citation. Chapter 8, while being as quote-laden as any
of the others, makes a departure from the author’s norm and cites each author’s
work at the end of the quote.
PERSONAL APPLICATION
As stated above, The Complete Green Letters is replete
with applicable admonitions to the reader.
Indeed, the entire book is applicational rather than theoretical. Though the concepts covered are in themselves
of a theoretical nature, they are presented in an intensely
application-oriented fashion. As such,
nearly every page-turn prompted reflection and self-assessment. As with Thomas a Kempis’ work mentioned at
the start of this paper, the individual chapters were powerful enough that
reading one per night would provide ample material for the following day’s
reflection.
Perhaps the most powerful piece of
the book for me is the challenge to recognition of my position in Christ. Though Chapter 9 elucidates the concept of
position in detail, the theme weaves throughout the work. Indeed, it could be said that positional
understanding and appropriation are the premise of the book. At first glance, it may appear odd that such
a seminal idea would not be refined until eighty pages in, but the preceding
chapters provide an understanding of the basics of the faith that are necessary
for position to be reckoned accurately.
One of the greatest statements of Stanford’s assertion regarding
position is, “We take our position, not by attempting to get into it, but
simply by seeing that we are already positioned in the Lord Jesus. We abide in Him by resting in the fact.”[8] This idea of recognizing one’s position
rather than striving to obtain it is amplified nicely (in advance) in Chapters
seven and fifteen (on Appropriation and Rest, respectively). As someone who has often agonized over my
spiritual condition, I found great comfort in the fact that I am already in Christ, already possessor of the benefits and traits of the redeemed.
A second concept that resonated
strongly with me was that of having been crucified with Christ. “Crucified with Christ” is a phrase that one
growing up in the Church is bound to hear repeatedly. However, the depth of that reality, and the
mystery of it, was made poignantly real through the words of Chapters eight and
twelve. Stanford wrote that we often
grasp the first aspect of Calvary – that we are forgiven, justified, by
Christ’s assuming the penalty for our sins.
What is neglected, says Stanford, is a second aspect of the cross – that we are “identified with Christ in
His death and resurrection.”[9] Elsewhere, he quotes Norman B. Harrison,
“This is the distinctive mark of the Christian – the experience of the
cross. Not merely that Christ died for
us, but that we died with Him.”[10] This knowledge of the death of the old man
has been extremely freeing to me, and I have a much deeper appreciation for the
depth of Christ’s work at Calvary.
CONLCUSION
The
Complete Green Letters is a very dense work with deep theology and
intensely emotional for the conscientious reader. Within its pages, Miles J. Stanford details
the facts of the Christian’s relationship to, and standing in, Christ. Both laity and clergy would benefit greatly from
Stanford’s work, gaining a deeper understanding of the facts on which our faith
is built. This tour de force in the theology of Christian living possesses a depth
of insight that is rare in modern writing, and draws on a plethora of Christian
writing to construct a treatise that, with each page, ushers one into the
presence of God.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Stanford,
Miles. The Complete Green Letters. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984.
[2]
http://www.logos.com/product/4343/works-of-miles-j-stanford (Accessed April 24,
2013) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_J._Stanford (Accessed April 24,
2013).
[3]
Miles J. Stanford, The Complete Green
Letters, 3.
[4]
Ibid., 77.
[5]
Ibid., 15.
[6]
Ibid., 16.
[7]
Ibid., 67.
[8]
Ibid., 81.
[9]
Ibid., 48.
[10]
Ibid., 33.
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