Who Was A. J. Gordon? Boston Pastor, Hymn Writer and Bible Teacher
A. J. Gordon was an American Baptist pastor who lived from 1836 to 1895. His full name was Adoniram Judson Gordon. For twenty-five years he led the Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston, and he became one of the best-loved Bible teachers of his generation: a friend and fellow worker of D. L. Moody, a leader in missions, the founder of the school that became Gordon College and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and the composer of the tune most Christians sing to "My Jesus, I Love Thee." His books on the Holy Spirit, union with Christ and the Lord's return are still in print.
Here's a fuller look at his life, what he taught, and where to start reading him.
A New Hampshire boy named for a missionary
Gordon was born on April 19, 1836, in New Hampton, New Hampshire. His father, John Calvin Gordon, was a Baptist deacon, and he named his son after Adoniram Judson, the American missionary to Burma. It was a name to live up to, and in the end Gordon gave his life to missions as much as to his own congregation.
He came to faith at fifteen and soon set his heart on the ministry. He graduated from Brown University in 1860 and from Newton Theological Institution in 1863. That same year he married Maria Hale and became pastor of the Baptist church in Jamaica Plain, near Boston.
Clarendon Street
In 1869 Gordon was called to the Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston. It was a fairly well-to-do congregation, and Gordon spent the rest of his life there. Over those years it changed. By the time he died it was known across America as a church of prayer and missions, where the Holy Spirit was honored, the Bible was preached and the poor were welcome.
Gordon told part of that story himself in a small book, How Christ Came to Church. One Saturday night, worn out from preparing his sermon, he dreamed that a poor, serious stranger came into the service, listened closely and slipped out at the end. When Gordon asked who it was, the man he had sat with answered, "It was Jesus of Nazareth." Gordon never claimed the dream was a revelation. But it pressed one truth on him for the rest of his life: Christ is really present by His Spirit whenever His people meet. Anything in worship He wouldn't welcome had to go.
The book describes what followed. Seasons of prayer for the power of the Holy Spirit, sometimes for weeks at a time. A mission to the Jews of Boston, a Chinese mission school, outdoor preaching on the wharves, a rescue home for women and an industrial home for men out of work. Gordon put the principle like this:
We cannot scourge dead works out of the church, but we can live them out.
How Christ Came to Church, Cleansing the Temple
With Moody, and for the missions
Gordon worked closely with D. L. Moody and was a favorite speaker at Moody's summer conferences at Northfield, Massachusetts. He was a strong voice for world missions among American Baptists and served for years in the leadership of the American Baptist Missionary Union. In 1889, with the backing of his church, he opened a training school in Boston for missionaries and Christian workers, many of them headed for the Congo. That school grew into Gordon College and, in time, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
For years he also edited a paper, The Watchword, on Bible truth and missions. And he loved church music. He edited hymnbooks and wrote tunes for a number of hymns. His best known is the tune for "My Jesus, I Love Thee," still sung in churches everywhere.
What he taught
Four convictions run through Gordon's books.
Union with Christ. In In Christ he showed how often the New Testament calls the believer "in Christ," and argued that this union is the key to the whole Christian life. What happened to Christ happened to the believer in Him:
God has said, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." The soul has sinned, and it has died in Christ.
In Christ, chapter II
The twofold work of Christ. In The Twofold Life he set Christ's work for us beside His work in us: justification and sanctification, peace with God and the peace of God, power for sonship and power for service.
We do not work for life, but from life; we do not by our own power attain unto Christ, but we receive Christ in order that we may have power to attain.
The Twofold Life, chapter VIII
The Holy Spirit. The Ministry of the Spirit treats the Spirit as Christ's representative on earth in this age, sealing, filling and anointing believers and governing the church. Gordon believed churches had pushed the Spirit aside and needed to give Him His place again.
The Lord's return. In Ecce Venit he argued for the premillennial coming of Christ and called the church back to its "uplifted gaze," waiting for its Lord.
He also wrote The Ministry of Healing, a case that God still heals in answer to the prayer of faith. He prayed for the sick privately rather than making healing part of public services, and the book closes with careful cautions as well as encouragement.
His death
Gordon fell ill with influenza and bronchitis in the winter of 1895 and died in Boston on February 2, 1895, not yet sixty. His son Ernest wrote his biography the next year. In 1896 How Christ Came to Church was published with a life sketch and a long appreciation by his friend Arthur T. Pierson (see who was Arthur T. Pierson).
Why he's still read
Gordon wrote with a pastor's heart and a scholar's care. He quoted the church fathers, the Reformers and the Puritans, but he never lost the plain reader. He's still read because he made great truths feel near: that the believer is in Christ, that the Spirit is present in the church, that Jesus is coming again. And he lived what he wrote, in a Boston congregation that learned to pray.
Where to start
TheWay Library has six of his books, all free to read.
- Start with How Christ Came to Church, short and personal, with Pierson's sketch of his life.
- For the Christian life, read In Christ, then The Twofold Life.
- For the Holy Spirit, read The Ministry of the Spirit. It's also in our guide to the best books on the Holy Spirit.
- For the second coming, read Ecce Venit.
- On healing, read The Ministry of Healing.
Our guide to A. J. Gordon's books describes each one, and our collection of A. J. Gordon quotes gathers his best lines. All his books are on the A. J. Gordon author page.