Spiritual growth can be a dangerous thing for humans still carrying the legacy of sin… Even - perhaps especially - as they mature, they can easily come within sight of ‘the country of Conceit’. The danger lies in our realising we’re making progress, and so being exposed to the temptation of pride. Leaving the Delectable Mountains, the Pilgrims could easily have drifted into ‘Conceit’. Thankfully, Christian and Hopeful stay on the Path, but they are joined on that Path by ‘a very brisk lad that came out of that country’, by the name of Ignorance. Christian’s suspicions are immediately aroused, for Ignorance did not enter the Narrow Way through the Narrow Gate. Rather, thinking himself to be a ‘good’ person, he simply joins the Path wherever and however is convenient and assumes that God will undoubtedly approve of ‘a good liver’… hence the name: Ignorance. After all, someone who thinks such things is truly and culpably ignorant of the Gospel.
There is an atmosphere of the Pharisee about Ignorance. ‘I pray, fast, pay tithes and give alms…’. Such religiosity has a passing appearance of genuine discipleship, but scratch the surface and it quickly becomes clear that it is an attempt to justify ourselves before God, rather than a throwing ourselves on Christ to be justified in Him. We don’t have to read far in the Gospels before we see what Jesus thinks of the Pharisees (see e.g. John 5:37-44, 8:42-47; Lk.18:9-14; Matt.5:17-37; Matt.23 etc.). Tragically there are still many in the Church who would go by the same name. The symptoms are clear. They see religion as a way of showing that they are good people, and assume that their efforts will be enough. They resent any talk of sinfulness or failure, and see religion’s job to affirm their resolution. They have a ‘live and let live’ attitude to religion, or as Ignorance puts it: ‘be content to follow the religion of your country, and I will follow the religion of mine. I hope all will be well’. They assume they know all they need to know about being a Christian, and see no need to be taught. They are, as Bunyan puts it, ‘wise in their own conceit’.
In passing he advises, through the dialogue between Hopeful and Christian, that it is best not to waste much time and energy on such conceited ‘christians’. ‘There is more hope of a fool than of him’, laments Christian. Such as Ignorance might be open to correction at some point, but the danger for them is that we don’t know what we don’t know. If we are conceited along with it, then we assume there is nothing more to know. This is such a stark contrast to Christian and Hopeful in their humility and eagerness to mine the immense riches of their faith. Legalism, Stagnation, Complacency are the children born of Ignorance and Conceit.
We have to wait till the end of Pilgrim’s Progress to discover the end of Ignorance. Vain-Hope ferries him through death with ease, and in his arrogant complacency he carries his false confidence right to the door of the Celestial City. Only then does he discover what he did not know. Only then does he realise that, more importantly, he is not known by the King. Bunyan describes his condemnation in the closing chilling words of the book: ‘Then I saw that there was a way to hell even from the gates of heaven…’.
Other spiritual disasters lurk along the borders of this terrible land. In a dark lane, Christian and Hopeful stumble on one of the most disturbing. Turn-away (a resident of the nearby town, Apostasy) is led away to Destruction. The encounter shakes the Pilgrims to the core, as well it should. To watch the ruin of a soul, as someone denies the faith they once professed is a terrifying thing to behold. We may shrug it off as a sad thing that we haven’t seen someone at Church for a while, or that they no longer seem particularly interested in Christ. But that is only because we don’t understand the reality of what is happening when someone stops coming to Church, or drifts away from their faith. Bunyan sees more clearly.
‘…it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame’
(Heb.6:4–6).
Christian is right to tremble before the sight of one for whom there is no hope.
And we should too.
Questions to ponder:
How would you recognise conceit in yourself? …in another Christian?
Do you tremble at the thought of someone denying the faith they once professed? Do you think such a person was ever a Christian in the first place? Is it possible for someone who is genuinely saved to lose their salvation? Why / why not?
