Ignorance and the Good Heart

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? JEREMIAH 17:9

Of all the false pilgrims in the First Part, Ignorance is the one Bunyan follows furthest — all the way to the gate of the Celestial City. He is not a villain, a hypocrite or a scoffer. He is pleasant, confident, religious and sincere. And the last sentence of the dream is about him.

A brisk lad from Conceit

Just below the Delectable Mountains, a little crooked lane comes into the way from the country of Conceit, and down it comes a very brisk lad whose name is Ignorance. He is going to the Celestial City. Christian asks how he expects to get in at the gate. “As other good people do,” he says. And what will he show at the gate? He knows his Lord’s will, he says, and has been a good liver; he pays every man his own, prays, fasts, pays tithes, gives alms, and has left his country for where he is going.

Christian points out that he did not come in at the wicket gate but by the crooked lane, and may be counted a thief and a robber at the end. Ignorance is unbothered. Christian and Hopeful are strangers to him; let them follow the religion of their country, and he will follow the religion of his. As for the gate, all the world knows it is a great way off; they have a fine, pleasant green lane that comes down the next way into the way.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. MATTHEW 7:21

My heart tells me so

On the Enchanted Ground Christian and Hopeful fall back and talk with Ignorance at length, and this conversation is the theological heart of the First Part.

Christian asks how things stand between God and his soul. Well, says Ignorance; he is always full of good motions that come into his mind to comfort him as he walks. He thinks of God and heaven, and desires them, and leaves all for them. How does he know he has left all? “My heart tells me so.” Christian quotes Proverbs: he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. That is spoken of an evil heart, says Ignorance, but mine is a good one. How does he know? Because his heart and life agree together.

He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. PROVERBS 28:26

Christian then explains what a good heart and good thoughts really are. Good thoughts about ourselves are those that agree with the word of God — and the word says that there is none righteous, that the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. When we think of ourselves so, and feel it, our thoughts are good ones, because they agree with God’s judgement. Ignorance replies, “I will never believe that my heart is thus bad.”

A faith of his own making

Then Christian asks about his faith in Christ. Ignorance says he believes that Christ died for sinners, and that he shall be justified before God from the curse through Christ’s gracious acceptance of his obedience to His laws. Or, he adds, Christ makes his religious duties acceptable to the Father by virtue of His merits.

Christian’s answer is careful and precise. This is a fantastical faith, he says, for it is nowhere described in the word. It is a false faith, because it takes justification from the personal righteousness of Christ and applies it to Ignorance’s own. It makes Christ a justifier of his actions rather than of his person. True faith, by contrast, flies for refuge to Christ’s own righteousness — His personal obedience to the law, in doing and suffering for us — and, shrouded under the skirt of it, the soul is presented spotless before God and acquitted.

And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. PHILIPPIANS 3:9

This is the doctrine of justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ, and it lay at the centre of Bunyan’s whole life. It is exactly what he discovered in the field outside Bedford, when the sentence fell on his soul that his righteousness was in heaven. Ignorance’s faith sounds very like the gospel. It mentions Christ, His death and His merits. But it quietly puts the believer’s own obedience back at the centre, with Christ as a kind of helper who tops it up. Bunyan saw that the difference was the difference between heaven and hell.

Ignorance objects at once: would you have us trust to what Christ in His own person has done without us? That would loosen the reins of our lusts and let us live as we please. Christian replies that Ignorance is ignorant of the true effects of saving faith, which bows and wins the heart to God in Christ, to love His name, His word, His ways and His people. Grace does not make us careless. It makes us grateful.

Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? ROMANS 6:1–2

A way to hell from heaven’s gate

We do not see Ignorance again until the very end. After Christian and Hopeful have crossed the river with great difficulty and entered the city in glory, the dreamer looks back and sees Ignorance come to the riverside. He gets over easily, without half the difficulty the others had, because a ferryman named Vain-Hope takes him across in his boat. He climbs the hill alone; no one meets him with the least encouragement. He knocks, expecting to be let in quickly. Asked for his certificate, he fumbles in his bosom and finds none. The King will not come down to see him, but commands that he be bound hand and foot and taken away to the door in the side of the hill.

And then the dream ends with a sentence that has haunted readers for three hundred years: “Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gate of heaven, as well as from the City of Destruction.”

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? … And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you. MATTHEW 7:22–23

Reading this with care

This is a severe ending, and it is meant to be. But notice who it is aimed at. It is aimed at the self-confident, not the self-doubting. Ignorance crosses the river easily and knocks expecting welcome; Christian nearly drowns in the river, full of fears. The one who is lost is the one who never doubted himself. If you are anxious about whether you have true faith, you are, in that respect at least, very unlike Ignorance. The remedy for your fear is the same as the remedy for his confidence: look away from your own heart to Christ’s righteousness.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Where does your own hope of heaven rest? Write it in one sentence. Does it mention your heart, your life, or Christ’s righteousness?

2. Read Philippians 3:4–9 and list what Paul counted loss. Is anything on your own list?

3. Think of someone you love who, like Ignorance, assumes good people go to heaven. Pray for them, and look for a gentle way to speak of Christ’s righteousness.

4. If you fear you might be Ignorance, notice the difference between his confidence and your concern, and bring your concern to Christ.

5. Ask God to show you the true state of your heart, and then to show you Christ.

A PRAYER

Lord, my heart is deceitful, and I have often trusted it. Forgive me for thinking myself good and my religion sufficient.

Deliver me from a faith of my own making. Let me be found in Christ, not having my own righteousness, but His.

Let His righteousness win my heart, so that I love Your name, Your word, Your ways and Your people.

And have mercy on those who walk the pleasant green lane of Conceit. Open their eyes before they come to the river. Amen.