(Geoffrey Thomas 1938– )
“The Shepherd leads the flock in the shadow of the Rock” (Francis Ridely Havergal)
The first time I came to Alfred
Place Baptist Church as a student (simply known as AP to students and members)
was quite a daunting experience. I had heard Geoff’s grandson Rhodri Brady
speak about the Welsh language Christian Union and Alfred Place Baptist Church
in Pantycelyn Halls where I was a resident as a Welsh learner. I determined to
follow Rhodri to church on Sunday as I was unsure of the way being wholly new
to Aberystwyth at this time. Coming into the church I was welcomed by two
deacons who gave me a copy of the hymnbook called Grace Hymns. I had
never heard of it before and thought it looked quite old fashioned. I proceeded
into the church and sat down in one of the hard wooden pews in line with the
pulpit, thinking to myself that I would need to visit the chiropractor after
the service. People were quietly reading their Bibles, pouring over their hymnbooks,
praying silently, or gently welcoming one another with hushed whispers. The
sense of reverence for God was much stronger than anything I had experienced before. The elders ascended the steps behind the church organ and
joined with the congregation. Geoff Thomas with considerable gravity entered
the pulpit from the place of prayer. Never did I think that I would one day
preach from that same pulpit and ascend the steps with those same elders on
several nerve-wracking occasions in my life. Geoff scribbled down some hymn
numbers onto a piece of paper somewhat flamboyantly and ascended into the
pulpit with sudden gravity. He looked quite solemnly at the congregation and
opened with the words: ‘Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and
earth. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’. I
had never heard a church service open with such gravity and seriousness before.
Surely, God was in this place.
The
service was structured around a hymn sandwich – something Geoff would describe
in the manse to his students as a ‘beautiful sandwich’. It consisted of four
hymns, a few prayers, Bible readings, a children’s talk (often quite humorous
but with a serious Gospel message), and some general notices regarding the
meetings of the week and church business. The children’s talk was so thorough
and theological that I at first mistook it for being the sermon itself. I
didn’t know any of the hymns we sang that day, though I would come to learn
many more tunes during my time as a student from their ancient and slightly
dusty hymnbook. ‘A Man there is, a real Man’ by Jospeh Hart would become one of
my favourites from the collection and ‘Give me a sight, O Saviour’ by Kathrine
Kelly. In my home church, we mostly used Songs of Fellowship by Kingsway
publications. The contrast between the seriousness of Grace Hymns and
the songs I was used to singing at home was quite considerable. I was used to
singing mostly choruses and repeating them a few times over with the words
projected onto a big screen where the pulpit used to be in my home church. The climax
of the service in Alfred Place was the sermon and the centrality of the pulpit
emphasised this point. Geoff preached that day for a whole hour, about the
length of a university lecture. I had never heard someone preach for so long
and with so much gravity and seriousness. I recognised in his sermons some
echoes of the thought of Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987) whom I was reading at
the time. Van Til was a philosopher and Christian apologist in the Reformed
tradition whom I had stumbled across during my studies in my quest to
understand more about Christian philosophy and apologetics. Little did I know
at this time that Geoff had known Van Til personally and had studied under him
at Westminster Theological Seminary in the United States.
The best part
about Alfred Place from my personal reflections was the Christian bookshop adjacent
to the church. I would often volunteer there and work over the summer for
Michael and Norma Keen (two of the kindest and most delightful members of
Alfred Place) during my time as an undergraduate and doctoral student. It was a
welcome opportunity for reading a choice selection of Reformed books, Puritan
literature, and Bible commentaries. I would learn about many of the best
Christian publishers such as the Banner of Truth, Reformation Heritage Books,
and Inter-Varsity Press from the collections in the Christian bookshop and
would find some Christian classics on the shelves that would profoundly
influence my own theological development such as J. I. Packer’s Knowing God (1973),
Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (1976), Arthur W.
Pink’s The Sovereignty of God (1930), John Stott’s The Cross of
Christ (1986), Thomas Watson’s A Body of Divinity (1692), J. C.
Ryle’s Holiness (1879), and Donald Macleod’s A Faith to Live By (1998).
These were titles Geoff frequently referred to in his sermons as being among
the best books for learning Reformed theology.
In the following
article, I attempt to make sense of Geoff’s life and ministry, his publications
and theology, as well as his influence and legacy in Wales and the wider world.
I offer some conclusions regarding his life and ministry from my perspective as
a student and postgraduate during my time at Alfred Place. A festschrift
entitled The Holy Spirit and Reformed Spirituality was published in
honour of Geoff’s life and ministry by Reformation Heritage Books in 2013 with
biographical contributions from Gary Brady and Paul Levy. Geoff has also published
his own autobiography entitled In the Shadow of the Rock (2022) which
was also printed by Reformation Heritage Books. This article draws upon the
biographical entries in the festschrift and autobiography as well as on upon my
personal acquaintance with Geoff’s life and ministry during my time as a
student and postgraduate at Alfred Place Baptist Church. Geoff would become my
mentor and dearly beloved friend in the faith through the fellowship of the
church and the hospitality of the manse.
Introducing Geoffrey Thomas
Hugh Geoffrey Thomas (known to students simply as Geoff) was
born on the 15th of October 1938 in Merthyr Tydfil, the son of Harry
Eastaway Thomas and Elizabeth Thomas (whose maiden name was Francis). He was pastor
of Alfred Place Baptist Church for some fifty years and preached through most
of the Bible verse-by-verse during this time. He studied at the University
College of Cardiff and Westminster Theological Seminary and was awarded an
honorary doctorate in divinity for his faithful expository ministry of Scripture
by the theological seminary in 2011. He also serves as Visiting Professor of Historical
Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan and
has previously taught on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit at Union Theological
Seminary in Bridgend, South Wales and published his lectures as a book in 2011.
His cousin Bobi Jones became a famous Welsh literary critic, professor, poet,
and nationalist, and I had the privilege of meeting him a few times at Cymdeithas
y Dysgwyr (CYD) meetings in Aberystwyth. A gentle and entirely brilliant
man who inspired me to diligently pursue my studies for an undergraduate degree
and Master of Philosophy in Welsh language and literature at Aberystwyth and to
understand things from a critical neo-Calvinistic perspective as developed in
his study of Welsh literature Llen Cymru a Chrefydd [The Literature of Wales and
Religion] (1977). I was fascinated in reading Bobi’s writings to
detect the influence of Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987), Francis Schaeffer (1912–84),
Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977), Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), and Herman Bavinck
(1854–1921) in much the same way as I delighted in Geoff sermons for the same
reasons. Here was a Christian worldview being formed in my mind – a philosophy
of life, a theory of everything. And yet it was something even the simplest
child could grasp in its essentials.
Geoff describes
coming to know the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith as a child.
These were doctrines that would shape his life and ministry for over fifty
years in Aberystwyth:
Who made me?
Almighty God. What else did God make? He made the universe. Where do we learn
about God? In the Bible. Why does the world groan? Because man has fallen and rejects
God. How can I be forgiven for my sins? Through the life and death of the Lamb
of God. How should I live? By taking my turn and letting others have their
turn, and by keeping one day special when I worship God. How can I know God?
Through His Son, Jesus Christ, especially through His holy Book, the Bible?
What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.[1]
Christian philosophers like Cornelius
Van Til, Gordon H. Clark, John Frame, and Bobi Jones were simply applying these
basic Christian principles of Reformed theology to the formation of a Christian
worldview and in their approach to critical theory and apologetics. The emphases
on the noetic effects of sin on the human mind and imagination, the
Creator-creature distinction, the sovereignty of God in determining all the
events in space and time, and the need for spiritual regeneration to see that
‘something lives in every hue that Christless eyes have never seen’.[2]
These were the basic principles of presuppositionalism as developed by Cornelius
Van Til and Gordon H. Clark. A Christian who believed them or presupposed them
would have a better worldview and explanation of things than the non-Christian
whose view could be reduced to the absurd – reductio ad absurdum. In
fact, the Christian would have the only worldview ultimately capable of
explaining life, the universe, and everything. The Christian worldview is not
merely better than pagan and atheistic alternatives, it is in fact the only
worldview worth having at all if one is to understand the chief and highest end of humankind.
Geoff
laments the widespread dominance of Protestant liberalism during his childhood
and adolescence in Wales. He says, ‘A great spirit and hugely important truths
were being deliberately discarded and were being replaced by a vague commitment
to human brotherhood and respect for Jesus Christ’.[3]
The brotherhood of man is no doubt an important doctrine, but it is certainly
not the only doctrine of the New Testament, neither is it the most important
from the perspective of Pauline theology. Much of Geoff’s adult life would be
spent in a ministry that sought to undo the pernicious effects of liberal
theology in Wales. Geoff would frequently recommend to his students the
devasting blow to the root of liberal theology from the pen of J. Gresham
Machen in Christianity and Liberalism (1923), a study and critique of
Protestant liberalism which would become one of the most influential evangelical
books of the twentieth century according to Christianity Today. Geoff
describes his experience of conversion into the Gospel truths of evangelical
orthodoxy as a young man:
One Sunday
night, I was given a heart assurance that Jesus Christ was the Lamb of God who
had taken away my sins. It was an event of recognition. I agreed with the claim
that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. It was not mere
chance or luck that made the world and us. I agreed that the Creator is not
silent, that he speaks to men and women through Moses and the prophets and
especially through His Son, Jesus Christ. He is indeed the Saviour of all who
put their trust in Him. [And] I believed that I was one of those sinners that
Jesus had come into the world to save.[4]
In such a testimony we find the
antidote to liberalism, God as infinite Creator and sustainer of the world and
a living faith in Christ as the Son of God and saviour of lost humanity. Such
truths would characterise Geoff’s ministry for some fifty years from the
seaside town of Aberystwyth. He confesses in his biography that ‘there has not
been a single day in which I doubted that I was a Christian, chosen by God,
saved by the life and death of the Son of God, and made alive to this reality
by the Spirit of God’.[5]
With faith comes assurance from the word of God. Geoff would never make
assurance the essence of faith during his ministry, and recognised that some
had only weak faith, but he would argue that a place of steadfast assurance was
normative in the Christian life, though some may struggle with doubts and
temptations and periods of spiritual depression.
His Education at Cardiff
University
One of the first major theological
books to influence Geoff during his time at Cardiff University was J. I.
Packer’s study for Inter-Varsity Press called Fundamentalism and the Word of
God (1958) in which Packer argued that the Church owed its existence to the
preaching of the word of God and not the other way round as Gabriel Hebert had
argued in Fundamentalism and the Church of God (1957) by SCM Press. It
was around this time that Geoff first heard about the ministry of Doctor Martyn
Lloyd-Jones – known to everyone as “the Doctor” since his original career had
been in medicine. Geoff attended a preaching service at the induction of Dr
Eifion Evans (an expert on Calvinistic Methodism and qualified pharmacist) into
the ministry during which Dr Lloyd-Jones was the main preacher. Dr Lloyd-Jones
would go onward to exercise a formative influence in shaping Geoff’s theology
and public ministry – a ministry that would engage the mind with divine truth
as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. During his time at Cardiff University,
Geoff was preoccupied with religious thoughts and deep questions about the
meaning of life and the work of God in the redemption and restoration of man:
‘I was in Cardiff on a much more important enterprise: to know God and to
comprehensively enjoy Him, to grow in my relationship with my Creator, to
understand the incarnate majesty of Jesus Christ, to see His glory in every
blade of grass and drop of rain, to adore Him for the love that Him on the
cross until my redemption was achieved’.[6]
In knowing God as our creator and redeemer, we recognise our creaturely
finitude and sin. An encounter with such a God should be a wholly humbling
experience. Human beings should repent of sin in dust and ashes before his infinite
majesty.
His time at
Cardiff University was somewhat unhappy in that Geoff felt he had chosen the
wrong course of study and was unhappy about the teaching methods and the
theology being taught in his department. However, he was introduced to a world
of evangelical literature by the Christian Union. One of the key books for
Geoff at this time was Dr Lloyd-Jones’ Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
(1976) which he treasured as his first introduction to the method of expository
exegesis. A number of other authors came to Geoff’s attention for the first
time such as Leon Morris, B. B. Warfield, Edward J. Young, and John Murray –
not to mention the Banner of Truth magazine to which Geoff has been a lifelong
subscriber. Geoff talks about becoming familiar with the Puritan author John
Owen and his formidable treatise on The Death of Death in the Death of
Christ (1647) which had been prefaced by J. I. Packer with an equally
formidable introduction that students loved to debate. Geoff learned from Packer
for the first time about the doctrine of particular redemption or limited
atonement as applied only to the elect. According to the Puritan John Owen, Christ
had not died to save the whole world, but only for his elect. Jesus lays down
his life, not for the whole world, but for elect sheep chosen from the depths
of eternity past (Cf. John 10:11). Owen would argue that while there was a
sufficiency in the atonement for the whole world, Christ’s death was
nonetheless only efficient or effective for the elect or those whom God had
eternally chosen to save by his grace and mercy. This was a message of utter
sovereignty. God would have mercy on the people of his own choice and none
else.
It was during
this time that Geoff would first meet J. Elwyn Davies, the leader of the
Inter-Varsity Fellowship in Wales. He would write a reference for Geoff to
attend Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and was, according to
Geoff, ‘the single greatest influence in my life as a student’.[7]
He recounts the explanation of justification by faith alone from 1 Corinthians
1:30 given during a preaching service at which Davies spoke a riveting message.
In the words of Geoff Thomas, the righteousness and purity of Christ belongs by
faith to the believer and God ‘imputes that spotless righteousness of the
God-man to everyone who repents and believes’.[8]
Justification is by way of imputation, rather than by the infusion of grace as
the Roman Catholic Church teaches – confusing the doctrines of justification
and sanctification. Geoff goes onto say that this ‘righteousness was also the
righteousness of the eternal Son of God, a righteousness as holy as God
Himself, as filled with love as the Father is full of love, infinite, eternal,
unchangeable righteousness … a measureless righteousness that can cover the
whole cosmos, every atom, every raindrop … It is a dynamic righteousness,
coming to all and upon all who believe’.[9]
Once you are covered in such a righteousness, you are covered for all eternity
in the beauty and holiness of Christ himself and no one can lay any charge
against you. This is what Geoff learned for the first time from Elwyn Davies.
Geoff describes
at this time an occasion where he cheated during a university examination by
copying another student’s answer. The thought of it would not dissipate and he felt
a great sense of guilt for what he had done. ‘Coals of fire were burning [in my
conscience], and eventually on my own, not having discussed it with anyone, I
wrote to the professor and confessed to him exactly what I had done’.[10]
The university decided that they would inform Westminster Theological Seminary
that he had completed his course of study but that he would have to re-sit some
examinations before being awarded his degree in Biblical Studies, Greek, and
Philosophy in 1963. Geoff argues that he came to Reformed convictions prior to
his course of study at Westminster Theological Seminary and that the seminary
served to reinforce principles he had already learned at home in Wales reading
Puritan and Reformed literature and listening to preachers like Elwyn Davies:
‘I had heard liberal religion taught at a Welsh university for three years and
had debated it with other students. Westminster Theological Seminary provided
me with an all-round grasp of the Christian faith … the study of the Bible in
America did not begin with German theologians at the end of the nineteenth
century – as one might have gathered from lectures at a Welsh university. The
issue of what I believed was not one of geography and an alien culture. The
issue facing Wales and the world is one of truth’.[11]
With typical clarity, Geoff makes the choice facing modernity between historic
orthodox Christianity and Protestant liberalism. As far as Geoff was concerned,
the side of history – and more importantly of Scripture – was with orthodoxy.
Westminster Theological
Seminary
Westminster Theological Seminary
was founded by J. Gresham Machen (1881–1937) after serious divisions over
Protestant liberalism within Princeton University. Machen had argued that liberalism
was not simply a lesser form of Christianity, but a wholly different religion.
This was fighting talk. His prized faculty at the newly founded Westminster
Theological Seminary would include such theological luminaries who would teach
in the same spirit and theological tradition as B. B. Warfield (1851–1921) and
Geerhardus Vos (1862–1949). Geoff highlights a number of key personalities on
the faculty at Westminster Theological Seminary in his autobiography. Space
only permits us to consider a few of these distinguished professors including
John Murray (1898–1975), Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987), and Edward J. Young
(1907–68). Geoff would often speak to students in the manse in hushed tones
about the life, theology, and ministry of John Murray whom he greatly admired.
Murray is the author of a well-known work on Reformed soteriology called Redemption
Accomplished and Applied (1955) as well as a technical commentary St.
Paul’s Epistle to the Romans that has only recently been surpassed by the scholarly
criticism of Douglas J. Moo. The Banner of Truth publishes four volumes of
Murray’s selected writings including a biography by Iain H. Murray. Geoff
describes Murray as being a robust and dedicated theologian but also a loving
friend and pastoral mentor. ‘He would often put his arm through yours and ask
about your parents and family. He was affectionate and could be more like your
brother than your professor’.[12]
I remember Geoff taking my arm on several occasions in imitation of John Murray
and talking to me about my friends and family. For such a giant of a man, he is surprisingly modest and humble as a pastor. I myself felt humbled to
belong at least in some small way to the wider Reformed tradition.
Geoff would
rarely speak about Cornelius Van Til during my time as a student. I often found
this puzzling and frustrating because his sermons were briming with the
influence of the formidable Christian philosopher and theologian whom I so
highly esteemed as a student. Van Til was profoundly critical of the theology
of Karl Barth – perhaps too critical in my opinion – and his study Christianity
and Barthianism (1962) was blistering attack on the principles of
neoorthodoxy which Van Til viewed as a new form of modernism. Geoff would often
comment that Barth’s life and work never brought about a revival of orthodox
Christianity for all its emphasis on the sheer transcendence and absolute
divinity of God. It never produced the kind of God-honouring preachers that
characterised the eighteenth-century evangelical revivals. Barthian preachers
could confuse their congregations just as much as their Schleiermacherian ones.
In his autobiography, Geoff describes what an exhilarating experience it was to
attend a lecture by Van Til and learn from his frequent use of diagrams on a
chalk board to explain theology, philosophy, and apologetics:
He lectured
without a note and, with his piece of chalk, covered the backboard and soon
came to his famous two circles. The world’s view of religion included God,
represented by one large circle, and mankind and creation, represented by a
small circle within the big circle. In other words, for the world and unbelief,
there is no ontological distinction between its God and itself. All was one.
Then there was the two-circle position of God (and one large circle again was
drawn) and His creation (and a small circle was drawn beneath it). Thus, Van
Til sought to establish as the foundation of apologetics the Creator-creature
distinction.[13]
All forms of pantheistic theology teach
that God and the world are essentially one and the same entity – much in the
same way as Spinoza expressed the relationship between God and nature as being
interchangeable terminology: deus sive natura. This was the position of the
liberalism against which J. Gresham Machen had identified his own theology and
was the basis upon which he founded Westminster Theological Seminary. Orthodox
theism, by way of contrast, maintained that God and the world were separate
entities and distinct from one another. According to Van Til, the only
worldview that makes sense of all reality is the theistic position in which God
and the world are distinct entities. Even though God pervades the world
entirely by his omnipresence, he nonetheless made the world out of nothing (ex
nihilo), rather than out of his own being or preexisting materials as with
a Platonic demiurge. In a sense, Van Til was doing nothing new in his
formulation of presuppositional apologetics. He was simply applying the truths
of Reformed confessional theology to the practice of philosophy and Christian
apologetics. Other scholars who would follow in Van Til’s footsteps include
John Frame and Greg Bahnsen, though some Reformed scholars such as R. C. Sproul
would argue that Van Til departed from the traditional or classical approach to
Reformed apologetics as evidenced in the work of B. B. Warfield and Charles
Hodge. A via media perhaps exists in the philosophy and apologetic
method of Francis A. Schaeffer, an American theologian, philosopher, and
Presbyterian minister whom Geoff also admired – particularly for his love of
art and culture.
Geoff comments on
his appreciation of the theology of Edward J. Young while at Westminster
Theological Seminary. Young was the author of Thy Word is Truth (1957)
as published by the Banner of Truth which defended the belief that the Bible
was the holy and infallible word of God. Young led Geoff to the conclusion that
‘one of the most vital challenges the Christian church has always to face is
the attitude that the infallible Christ, the Son of God, took to the Scriptures.
For us He can say nothing wrong, and Jesus said that God’s Word was truth and
that it could not be broken … The infallible Christ gives me infallible
Scripture’.[14] This
comment raises the complex question of Biblical infallibility or inerrancy in
Christian theology during the twentieth century. Most conservative evangelicals
would nowadays agree that the Bible is the infallible word of God as given in
the original documents or autographs and would allow for copyist errors and
variations in the surviving or extant manuscripts. Some scholars might shy away
from the term ‘inerrancy’ for these reasons and prefer to speak of the ‘infallibility’
of the truth-content of Scripture. I would suggest that the two terms are
essentially interchangeable in American fundamentalist theology at this time. The
point Geoff makes is that if Christ believed the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testaments to be the holy and infallible word of God and without error in the
original autographs, then we must believe these things also as professing
Christians. Edward J. Young’s magnum opus was his three-volume study of
Isaiah in which he argued for the single authorship of the book against modern
liberal views and applied his understanding of Biblical infallibility to a much-disputed
Old Testament book.
Aberystwyth and the Return to
Wales
Geoff graduated with a Master of Divinity
(M.Div.) from Westminster Theological Seminary in 1964 and came home to Wales to
experience the joy of his first marriage to Iola Thomas (whose maiden name was
Williams). Iola happens to be one of the most delightful Christian women I ever
had the privilege of meeting. She was gentle, prayerful, and kind. I owe her
many delightful Sunday lunches and was thankful for the opportunities to
practice my Welsh at the manse without embarrassment at making mistakes. Iola
was born during the Second World War in a small town called Blaenau Ffestiniog in
North Wales near Snowdonia National Park which profited greatly from slate
mining. The people of Blaenau Ffestiniog benefited from what Geoff describes as
a former grace in the land: ‘[They] were also committed to the value of
education and to nonconformist religion, radical thought, and the morality of
the Bible’.[15]
When J. Elwyn Davies began his ministry there, the people of Blaenau Ffestiniog
heard of the great historic doctrines of the Christian faith and learned about the
dramatis personae of the history of Christianity in Wales such as Bishop
William Morgan (one of the translators of the Bible into Welsh), the Welsh
language hymn-writers Williams Pantycelyn and Ann Griffiths, the author of a
popular catechism and Bible dictionary in Thomas Charles of Bala, and the
preaching and pastoral ministry of the famous medical doctor from Wales who
became a preacher, namely Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Iola was exceptionally bright.
She won a scholarship to Cardiff University and wore a special gown with a diamond-shaped
emblem on her sleeve to show others she had won a scholarship. She had chosen
to study the same course at Cardiff University as Geoff but regretted not
choosing to study Welsh language and literature instead which was her true love.
She was an active member of the Christian Union in Cardiff, signed their
doctrinal statement with complete confidence, and even served as female
president of the Christian Union for a time. Geoff and Iola had three daughters
– Eleri, Catrin, and Fflur – all of whom became devout Christians in their
early teenage years and all of whom are Welsh speaking. Iola’s affliction with
dementia in her final years was difficult to witness as a student – mostly for
the sake of Geoff and his family who dearly loved Iola and had to see her
suffering. She now rests safely and with a sound mind in the presence of the
Lord Christ who wipes away every tear from her eyes.
The seaside town
of Aberystwyth in my second home. It is the place I feel happiest and most
contented in the world. Geoff and Iola spent half a century in Aberystwyth. It
has often been described as the cultural capital of Wales and is home to a
prestigious university that was founded in 1872 and to the National Library of
Wales which contains many rare books and manuscripts from Welsh history.
Construction of the National Library first began in 1911 but was not completed
until 1937. Every August two weeklong conferences are held at Aberystwyth by
the Evangelical Movement of Wales (EMW) – one in English and another in Welsh. I have
attended both conferences and greatly profited from the preaching at these
meetings and from the excellent bookstall that accompanies the English conference.
Geoff would often preach a miniature conference on the Sunday and Monday
morning before the official meetings started. These were often the highlights
of my time at Aberystwyth. I would also often be in the Christian bookshop at
this time of year and would get to meet so many wonderful Christians from all
over Wales and beyond who would come into buy Geoff’s sermons and browse
through the Puritan and Reformed books on sale.
Geoff laments
the emergence and development of liberal theology in Aberystwyth during the
twentieth century – trends that would be echoed throughout the principality and
the transatlantic world. Liberalism sought to take into consideration the
findings of modern science, philosophy, and ethics and merge these discoveries
with Christianity. Christians should not be afraid of the findings of modern
science. It is God’s world, and it will always reveal his glory. But liberalism
was in essence a form of syncretism between Athens and Jerusalem. Liberal
theologians would often use the same words and play the same language games as conservative
evangelical theologians but would mean entirely different things by the words
they chose to use. They rejected all sources of authority in religion such as
canonical Scripture and sacred tradition in form of the ecumenical creeds and
doctrinal confessions of the Reformed churches, and they emphasized human
experience and reason above Scripture and subjected the Bible to radical criticism
as they would any other human document. After eviscerating the Bible of most of
its miraculous content and demystifying Christ they were left with an empty saviour,
a social Gospel, and the universal brotherhood of man.
Geoff describes
the formation of a Welsh speaking evangelical church in Aberystwyth through the
ministry and convictions of an evangelical circle surrounding Gordon Macdonald
which included his cousin Bobi Jones, Geoff’s sister-in-law Rhiain Lewis and
her husband Keith, as well as a local doctor John Williams and several others
of evangelical convictions in Welsh speaking community in Aberystwyth. I would
attend this church on several occasions during my time as a student under the
ministry of Derrick Adams and I once preached at a joint service between Alfred
Place and the Welsh Evangelical Church for a Good Friday service. Mercifully,
they asked me to preach in English. My preaching in Welsh up to this point had
been very limited and I still lack confidence in my ability to speak Welsh
despite holding two degrees in the language. Gwyn Davies and his wife Glenys
from the Welsh evangelical church have been a great encouragement to me as well as Linda Lockley who helped me grasp some essential principles of Welsh grammar
and syntax. Although I was tempted by the Welsh evangelical church as student,
I made Alfred Place my natural home – at first because it was a long walk from
my halls of residence to the Welsh speaking church, but also because I was
attracted by the winsomeness and profundity of Geoff’s ministry.
Alfred Place Baptist Church
Geoff describes the congregation at
Alfred Place as being modest in dress and appearance, not wanting to distract
from the word being preached in the pulpit. The hymns were mostly taken from
the hymnal Grace Hymns, though some were also from Christian Hymns
published by the Evangelical Movement of Wales (EMW). The congregation learned some
400 hymns during Geoff’s time as pastor with the congregation meaning that throughout
the year, they need not repeat any hymns. The problem with this approach, from
my perspective as a student, was that it proved tricky to become familiar with Grace
Hymns if you were new to the church. I wish I had spent more time as a
student reading and studying the hymnal and would dearly have loved my own copy
of the music edition so I could learn the tunes as well as the words. My only
party trick being that I could play the piano blindfolded and improvise baroque
music in the style of J. S. Bach. One of the highlights of Geoff’s ministry was
the children’s talks in Alfred Place. They would often consider a particular
verse of Scripture and Geoff would tell a humorous story with a serious Gospel
message for the children. Baptists often neglect the place of children in their
theology as they are not considered members of the covenant until they profess
conversion. This attitude was less present in Alfred Place under Geoff’s ministry who
took a personal interest in the lives and well-being of the children and
thoroughly explained the Gospel and necessity of conversion to them. I would be
drawn towards a more Presbyterian and Congregationalist view of baptism and the
covenant which is consonant with the Reformed tradition. This is one area where
I do not see eye-to-eye with my Reformed Baptist mentor, elder, and friend –
whom I nonetheless deeply respect for his convictions.
During my time
as a student in Alfred Place, the offices of elder and deacon were held
exclusively by men, though the congregation was originally mixed on the
diaconate. Though I would agree with Geoff that the office of elder and
pastor-teacher should be reserved for men only, I would concede that perhaps
the office of deacon is open to women as Paul indicates in some of his letters.
The problem in Baptist churches is that many deacons essentially share the same
role as the eldership and careful distinctions in ecclesiology are not made by
the officers of the church. Besides the officers, the students would frequently
bring fresh faces and new life into the church every year. Many of them would
be quite serious and diligent in attending the means of grace and reading godly
literature. They would meet in the manse after the evening service where Geoff
would engage them in all sorts of activities from playing with silly string or
Lego bricks to deciphering a tough piece from the corpus of John Owen. He also
served salted popcorn. I never told him I only liked sweet.
Many students
under Geoff’s oversight would enter the ministry and become Gospel preachers. They
were Geoff’s minions planted throughout the principality and beyond. I felt a
call to the ministry before a serious decline in my mental health resulting in
a hospital admission and several years of intensive therapy. Preaching at
Alfred Place was one of the sweetest and most pleasant experiences of my life. It
was an absolute pleasure and privilege to preach Christ and all his benefits,
though absolutely terrifying to climb the steps of the pulpit for the very
first time. Many of my friends from my days as a student in Alfred Place would
become Gospel minsters including Geoff Lloyd, Rhodri Brady, Dafydd Williams,
and Reuben Saywell. Despite exercising considerable influence in moving many
students to accept calls to pastoral ministry, Alfred Place was fiercely independent.
The church had withdrawn from the Baptist Union in 1972 over concerns regarding
the liberal theology accepted among its leaders and seminarians. These debates
had long been settled by the time I became a student at Alfred Place, but the
fierce strain of independence remained. I tried to counteract this in my
experience by meeting with Salvation Army student fellowship and attending
house groups run by Elim Pentecostal Church. I always found St. Michaels a bit
overwhelming, though I deeply respected the evangelical ministry of Stuart
Bell. In addition to fellowship with other evangelical churches, I have frequently
felt the need for some kind of structure above the local church. It is the
inner-Presbyterian in me speaking, perhaps inherited from my grandfather. Paul
wrote collectively to the churches under his pastoral care. He assumed a sense
of unity and purpose between evangelical congregations with like-minded
principles. As the well-known saying goes, ‘In essentials unity, in
non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity’, usually attributed to a
variety of sources.
Expository Preaching and
Publications
The principal concern of Geoff’s
ministry was the systematic expository preaching of the Bible. During his time
as pastor of Alfred Place, Geoff would preach through almost every book in the
Bible verse-by-verse. In fact, Geoff has published the texts of over a thousand
of his sermons on his website which can be read free of charge (www.geoffthomas.org) or listened to via
sermon audio. The website also contains videos of Geoff preaching via the
YouTube channel I’ll Be Honest which makes sermon jams from some of the best
evangelical preaching on the internet. Geoff is also the author of numerous
articles for the Banner of Truth magazine and the Evangelical Times among
others. He has published several children’s books and is the author of a number
of distinguished books and booklets on theological, historical, and pastoral
topics including the following titles:
v Reading
the Bible (Edinburgh, 1980).
v Daniel:
Servant of God Under Four Kings (Bryntirion, 1998).
v Ernest
Reisinger: A Biography (Edinburgh, 2002).
v Philip
and the Revival in Samaria (Edinburgh, 2005).
v The
Sure Word of God (Bryntirion, 2007).
v Satisfied
with the Scriptures (Pensacola, FL, 2007).
v The
Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI, 2011).
v How
Do I Kill Remaining Sin? (Grand Rapids, MI, 2014)
v How
Can I Please God in Everything? (Grand Rapids, MI, 2019).
v Brownlow
North: The All-Around Evangelist (Grand Rapids, MI, 2019).
v What
is True Religion? (Grand Rapids, MI, 2020).
v You
Could Have It All (Grand Rapids, MI, 2020).
v Everyone’s
Invited (Grand Rapids, MI, 2022).
I first read many of these titles
as a student in Alfred Place and was able to obtain copies of most things from
the Christian Bookshop in Aberystwyth. Geoff’s most important study in this
collection is his work on pneumatology published by Reformation Heritage Books.
It builds upon the tradition set by John Owen’s magisterial study of
pneumatology and simplifies and digests many of the themes in Owen’s theology. The
booklet, however, that was to influence me the most was Geoff’s short study Satisfied
with the Scriptures which we read aloud together as students in the manse.
This confirmed me in the belief that the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit were
restricted to the Apostolic era and no longer operate today, though it was not
the primary focus of the book. I was originally quite tempted by the Reformed
charismatic position of Wayne Grudem and Sam Storms, but Geoff showed me quite
clearly that we have everything we need in Scripture alone (sola scriptura).
There is no need to add gifts, prophecies, tongues, or miracles to that which
God has already revealed. We must rest satisfied with the Scriptures and learn
to be content with what God has given us in Christ – the final word of God.
Influences
Geoff identifies a number of influences on his life and thought including Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Iain Murray and the Banner of Truth, Albert N. Martin, Joel Beeke and Reformation Heritage Books, and Professor Bobi Jones. The “Doctor” needs no introduction. Originally trained as a medical doctor, Lloyd-Jones determined to enter the ministry. He felt could do better to the eternal wellbeing of his congregations than all medicine in the world. Geoff highly prizes the two-volume biography written by Iain Murray on the life and ministry of Lloyd-Jones and published by the Banner of Truth. I have heard him describe it as the best biography written during the twentieth century – no inconsiderable comment from an avid reader of Christian biographies. He does express some mild criticisms of Lloyd-Jones such as his refusal to consider the topics of homosexuality and abortion in Paul's letter to the Romans, as well as his advocacy of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the continuation of spiritual gifts. His overall impression of the Doctor however is highly favourable and continues the unfortunate hagiographical strain that has been common in evangelical critique of the Doctor. The Doctor’s biographer – Iain Murray – exercised considerable influence over Geoff’s public theology, particularly his view of the Christian past. Iain Murray is an evangelical and Reformed historian who continues to write in the hagiographical tradition. Many of his biographies find little to critique in their subjects and offer a series of evangelical ‘saints’ to be emulated theologically and devotionally. Geoff would frequently comment on how readable he found many of Iain Murray’s biographies and edifying towards faith and holiness. Not only does Iain Murray write works of evangelical history, but he was also involved in founding and editing the Banner of Truth magazine for many years – perpetuating the hagiographical tradition about Reformed heroes from the past. Other important influences on Geoff’s public theology has been the preaching ministry of Albert N. Martin, the work of Joel Beeke and Reformation Heritage books, and the influence of his cousin Professor Bobi Jones. Geoff particularly recommends Al Martin’s three volume study Pastoral Theology: The Man of God, Joel Beeke’s four volume Reformed Systematic Theology, and the online works of Professor Bobi Jones (www.rmjones-bobijones.net).
Conclusions
What can I say by way of conclusion
to such a grand life? Geoff is my mentor and friend. He has been there for me
in some of my darkest moments. I hesitate to offer any criticism of a dear
brother and friend in Christ. If I were in Geoff’s shoes, would I have done
anything differently? Geoff confesses that he perhaps should have taken a more
flexible and topical approach to writing sermons after the manner and style of
Spurgeon. I happen to disagree with him about that and I think he has done
something quite remarkable in preaching through nearly every book in the Bible.
There are not many ministers who can claim such a grand achievement in the
twenty-first century. I probably would have changed the Bible translation used
at Alfred Place. I find the English Standard Version (ESV) to be the most
authoritative and readable English translation. I would almost certainly have
needed to change the hymnbook to Christian Hymns published by the EMW as
I am so unfamiliar with many of the hymns in Grace Hymns. These are
minor and peripheral issues. I wonder if some of the young men and deacons in
the church could have been encouraged to preach and lead services, and perhaps
a course like Christianity Explored be introduced once or twice a year.
I find that Christianity Explored is quite helpful for seekers and new
Christians. It is conservative evangelical form of the Alpha Course. I think this would have been helpful for
students and residents of Aberystwyth and the surrounding areas. I would also
have tried to encourage informal house groups for fellowship. Besides these
things, I think the clear – Sunday-by-Sunday – approach to the exposition and
application of Scripture is key to any successful and God-honouring Gospel
ministry. Supremely, Geoff was a preacher of the whole counsel of God and of
Christ crucified. He preached as a dying man to dying men – as if every sermon
would be his last. I thank God for him and his ministry in Wales and the wider
world. May his life and ministry always bring glory to God and may he know much
happiness in second marriage with Barbara Thomas (formerly Homrighausen).
References
Beeke, Joel, and Derek Thomas, The
Holy Spirit and Reformed Spirituality: A Tribute to Geoffrey Thomas (Grand
Rapids, MI, 2013).
Thomas, Geoffrey, In the Shadow of the Rock: An Autobiography (Grand Rapids, MI, 2022).
[1]
Geoff Thomas, In the Shadow of the Rock: An Autobiography (Grand Rapids,
MI, 2022), p 43.
[2]
Words from the hymn ‘Loved with everlasting love’ by George Wade Robinson
(1838–77).
[3] Thomas,
In the Shadow of the Rock, p. 59.
[4] Thomas,
In the Shadow of the Rock, p. 61.
[5]
Thomas, In the Shadow of the Rock, p. 62.
[6]
Thomas, In the Shadow of the Rock, p. 78.
[7]
Thomas, In the Shadow of the Rock, pp. 84–5.
[8] Thomas,
In the Shadow of the Rock, p. 86.
[9]
Thomas, In the Shadow of the Rock, p. 87.
[10]
Thomas, In the Shadow of the Rock, p. 90.
[11]
Thomas, In the Shadow of the Rock, p. 92.
[12]
Thomas, In the Shadow of the Rock, p. 106.
[13]
Thomas, In the Shadow of the Rock, p. 112.
[14]
Thomas, In the Shadow of the Rock, p. 117.
[15]
Thomas, In the Shadow of the Rock, p. 156.