Forgotten Honour - John Bunyan

After the Bible, probably the most well known and most widely published book is 'Pilgrims Progress' by John Bunyan.

John Bunyan lived from 1628 -1688 and his famous book which he began to write while he was in prison, and was published in 1678

In this series of 'Forgotten Honour' in which we look at how the concepts of honour and shame permeated the thinking and theology throughout most of Church History, we see it once again in how Bunyan's described the loss of Pilgrim's 'sin burden'. 

Then Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on singing,

Thus far did I come laden with my sin;

Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in

Till I came hither: What a place is this!

Must here be the beginning of my bliss?

Must here the Burden fall from off my back?

Must here the strings that bound it to me crack?

Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be

The Man that there was put to shame for me.

It was the last two lines of the above paragraph that Charles Spurgeon quoted in his 'Morning and Evening' morning devotional for February 1st and it piqued my interest.

We in the 21st century Western world might find it strange that Bunyan's primary way to describe salvation and the cross is in terms of shame. But we can be assured this was no accidental choice of words, but his would have carefully crafted what he said in order to convey maximum meaning and understanding. He would have also believed that his readers would have identified and understood what he was talking about. 

The bliss he knew the cross to give, he understood in terms of loss of shame. He saw the burden of sin as a burden of shame, and he saw what Christ 'bore' for him on the cross was his burden of shame. His burden was released because Christ bore the shame of his sin. His sin was gone because his shame was dealt with.

And he wanted his readers to understand their situation through the eyes of the main character, Christian,…and in doing so he spoke in terms of honour and shame.  Thus his message to us also is to think more about the cross in terms of Christ bearing our shame…and letting that truth be what motivates us to sing, and jump for joy and praise our Lord!

Something further to think about in relation to this that was also brought to my attention by someone recently…..To not emphasise the shame aspects of the cross not only reduces a person's ability to fully understand the meaning of sin and the fullness of the release of the load, but also therefore lessens the amount and significance of joy and praise given back to God. 

To grow in our understanding of salvation in terms of honour and shame, grows our appreciation and thankfulness of all that God has done for us in Christ, and thus gives more glory to God….so to not help others understand such cross realities actually holds them back from giving God the glory he deserves. And so we then need to ask ourselves how God views a situation where we are not giving him the glory he should have?