Professor David W. Gooding 16th September 1925 – 30th August 2019

Tribute by Professor John C. Lennox Service of Thanksgiving Crescent Church, Belfast 7th November 2019 2 Tribute by Professor John Lennox

Ladies and gentlemen, for me it is an honour to be asked to pay tribute to David Gooding, a brilliant scholar and profoundly original Bible teacher whose expositions of Scripture have been seminal in many lives including my own, in giving us confidence in the living power and relevance of the gospel in the contemporary world. I knew him for more than sixty years, and now face the difficult task of compressing what I know into half an hour. Part of my brief was to recall David’s academic journey.

A student at Cambridge

From 1947 to 1954 David Gooding studied Classics at Trinity College, Cambridge. He obtained a first and went on to do research in the Sep- tuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament that was used by the early Christians. After obtaining his PhD, he put some concentrated effort into studying ancient Egyptian. In his own words,

I was hoping to go to Egypt to put together a very ancient papyrus to do with the Bible. Just at the moment when I was ready to go, and had the funds arranged, I got a letter from a French Professor, saying that his student had worked on it, and he forbade me to go. He would see to it that if I wrote any- thing, it would not be published. That brought that to an end, so what on earth was I going to do?

David often said that he did not find guidance easy.

3 The Tabernacle David’s PhD thesis, entitled The Greek Deuteronomy, was on the Septu- agint. During his research he got interested in comparing the Hebrew and Greek texts on the construction of the tabernacle found in the book of Exodus. That eventually led to the 1959 publication by Cambridge University Press of his technical book The Account of the Tabernacle: Translation and Textual Problems of the Greek Exodus, which became the standard academic work on the subject. To help with his research he and his brother Gerald, aided by Bill and Roy Cowell, built an accurate scale model of the tabernacle, so that he could test his ideas on inter- preting difficult texts. David then did many series of talks in various churches around East Anglia, and the study of the tabernacle became a lifelong passion.

Research at Durham

He was finally appointed to a postdoctoral research fellowship to study ancient manuscripts at Durham University from 1954 to 1959. He explains what happened next:

It was a five-year contract, and it came to an end. In the late days of those five years I still had no job. The universities were not interested in what I was doing anyway. A position came up in a university, where I knew well the men who were there, and they said, ‘Thank you very much for applying,’ but they didn’t choose me. I had applied to another university and they didn’t even bother to reply.

Then one morning I went down to one of the colleges where I was a member. It was lunch time, but it was during the vacation and only a few students were present. At high table there was nobody there except myself. They were in process of doing a lot of spring cleaning and the crockery on the table was very odd. I noticed one thing that had a motto on it in Latin, and it read tu

4 mihi deus, quid deest? It means, You are a God to me, what shall I need—what shall I want? It was a voice from God to me at that stage when I despaired of getting a job.

Within a few weeks I was appointed in Ireland. What a boon that has been to me … The keenness of the believers here and the large numbers of them were a colossal encouragement. So now, at eighty-seven, I am not sure whether I am still English or whether I have qualified to become Irish; but I record the kindness shown to me over those many years.

I once asked him if he had ever thought of moving to another coun- try. His reply was simply, ‘Why would I? My friends are here.’

Career at Queen’s University, Belfast

It was in 1959 that he came to Belfast as Lecturer and subsequently Reader in Classics at Queen’s University. In 1961 he was awarded the prestigious Kaye Prize by Cambridge. David’s academic work powered on, and he was honoured in the years 1967 to 1969 by being invited to deliver the annual Oxford Grin- field Lectures on the Septuagint, when he summarized and developed his seminal work on the narratives in the books of Kings. In 1967 he also gave lectures on the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Theology faculty of Manchester University, chaired by Professor F. F. Bruce. At Queen’s he wrote academic articles and monographs relating to the study of the Septuagint. In his intellectual generosity, as a favour to the widow of the author Peter Walters, he put an immense amount of work into editing a standard work on the Septuagint text that appeared with Cambridge University Press in 1973. In 1977 David was elected as a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. The Academy provided fertile soil for an appreciation of the breadth of higher studies in Ireland, north and south, and led to friendships in

5 many fields. He was appointed to a personal chair in Old Testament Greek at Queen’s in 1979, became Professor of Greek in 1983 and retired in 1986, becoming Professor Emeritus. One of David’s most famous pieces of work resulted from an invi- tation by the eminent Swiss-French scholar Dominique Barthélemy to join him and two others in a cooperative project on the David and Goliath story in 1 Samuel 17, where the Hebrew and Greek versions differ considerably. A jointly-edited volume was published in 1986.1 Profes- sor Robert Gordon points out that this work gave David the opportu- nity to indulge two of his chief interests: textual criticism, and the study of biblical narrative. His close attention to the detail and nuance of biblical narrative influenced his expositions, to the benefit of the wider public. He was a brilliant storyteller, and his insights make the biblical storyline live in his talks and writings. Academically David was very bright. He did not often refer to his intellectual ability, but he once asked me if I took notes at lectures. ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘that is essential in mathematics, at least for me. What about you?’, I asked. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t need to take notes. Once I’d understood an argument, I remembered it permanently!’

Bible expositor

David’s academic work was centred on the Bible. He was single-mind- edly committed to using his wide knowledge of classical languages and literature to make a contribution, not only towards establishing the truth and reliability of Scripture in the academic field, but also to spell out the implications and expound the Scriptures in such a way as to buttress the confidence of his fellow believers in divine inspiration.

1 Dominique Barthélemy, David W. Gooding, Johan Lust, Emanuel Tov, The Story of David and Goliath: Textual and Literary Criticism: Papers of a Joint Research Venture.

6 From an early age he devoted himself to that task and rapidly proved to be a superbly gifted teacher.

A new approach David had trusted in Christ for his personal salvation at the age of ten, but during the war, when he worked on a farm, he had a sense that he was not really getting anywhere in his study of Scripture. One day he made a decision that was to prove life changing not only for him but for many others, including me. Here is what he said about it:

As a young man I used to read the Bible and got very little out of it, so I decided to check out whether these Christians who talked about what wonderful times they had in the Bible—whether it was real. I said, ‘I am going to read this part of the Bible, whether I get anything out of it or not, and give the Lord a chance to speak to me and show me.’ I could take you to the place, if you were in England, where the Lord spoke to me through his word. I have known that continuously since then. So my advice would be: you all differ in temperament, but do take God seriously and let him speak his will to you, reveal himself to you.

What he had noticed in those early days was that three of the sto- ries in Luke 5 seemed to be arranged in a deliberate order, developing a theme. He began to understand the sophisticated structure underly- ing the Gospel of Luke and the way in which it helped Luke’s thought flow, so that his message could be appreciated as never before. We’ve heard him say it many times, ‘When it comes to Bible study, these three remain: structure, pattern and thought flow; but the greatest of these is thought flow.’ David started to preach in a new way, filled with a wave of excitement at the wonder of Scripture that grew over the years, as the Lord—as David put it— ‘showed him’, book after book. His expositions carried great spiritual authority and a deep and last- ing ring of truth. Michael Middleton put it well: ‘The hidden gems that

7 David exposes reinforce the fact that someone must have put them there, and that must be God.’

Author

David knew how to use his ability to reach the average believer. Outside academia he will be remembered throughout the world for a series of brilliant and accessible expositions – According to Luke which expanded his war-time discoveries; True to the (on Acts); An Unshakeable Kingdom (on Hebrews); In the School of Christ, (on Jesus’ upper room teaching in John); and a superbly insightful analysis of the New Testament’s use of the Old, The Riches of Divine Wisdom. Together with the Encounters series,2 these books represent an immensely valu- able legacy for the whole world, since overall they have been translated into more than twenty-five languages with others being added as they are ready. His books have found their way not only into the libraries but into the sermons of many well-known preachers – not all of whom always acknowledge their sources. David would have smiled! ‘I am a whole- saler,’ he once said. ‘My job is to provide material for the retailers.’ In fact, he enjoyed hearing of others using his material effectively, in the sense that they did not just regurgitate it but did the hard work necessary, as he put it, ‘to make it their own.’ He was a precise thinker and constantly stressed the importance of noticing exactly what Scripture says. For instance, Paul’s instruc- tion to Timothy: ‘and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also’ (2 Tim 2:2). Paul did not tell Timothy to be original in his

2 : Opium or Truth?; Key Bible Concepts; The Bible and Ethics; The Definition of Christianity—all co-written with John Lennox.

8 use of the material that he had learned from Paul. David believed that the gift of teaching was not the ability to be original – although he was one of those rare individuals who really was original. In his view, the gift of teaching was the ability to communicate Scripture faithfully and credibly to others who could take up the baton and do the same. Nigel Lee spoke for many, both known and unknown, when he wrote:

Under God, I owe you almost everything in what has been the main part of my life – preaching and teaching the word of God. It was you who let me into the storehouse with its sixty-six shelves, and started to show me around … Over the years you have taught me God’s word, not as sermons, but as God speaking through the books in such a way that I could make it my own, and preach it without becoming you. It has been brilliantly stimulating and liberating at the same time.

My friendship with David

Ireland I first heard of David through my father. He had responded to him like many other men and women in this province, who had found an unprecedented fountain of fresh and inspiring teaching. David very soon commenced leading serious Bible studies in Belfast; among other places, in the Presbyterian Hostel in Howard Street and the War Memorial Building in Waring Street. These were foundational for many teachers, preachers and church leaders alive today. My parents invited him to stay at our home and I was impressed by the fact that he was interested in talking to me and stimulating my thinking. David brought the tabernacle model to Belfast and I well remember shortly after my 17th birthday driving from every night for two weeks to hear him explain its significance as described in the book of Hebrews. That was life changing. I would never have guessed that

9 more than thirty years later I would go with him to Siberia, where he lectured on the tabernacle in Novosibirsk – this time with a bigger model built by the late Stanley Marshall from Armagh. The safety of the model was ensured by it being placed under armed guard! I then left with David Blevins to go further east to give similar lectures in a former nuclear bomb shelter in the city of Irkutsk. My dad took me to a conference in Lurgan Town Hall in 1961 to hear David speak on the evidence for the resurrection from John 20. It was thrilling to listen to a well-crafted argument on the subject that carried such a sense of authority and truth that, even as a teenager, I could sense my confidence in Scripture growing, and I recall determining to get to know more. Arthur Williamson was also present and recalls vividly the impact this new approach to the study of Scripture had on him.

Cambridge David Gooding encouraged me to try for Cambridge and when I was accepted he informed me, in the quasi-biblical way in which he some- times spoke, that there was a man in Cambridge with four daughters. I saw the four on day two after my arrival and have been married to the eldest of them for fifty-one years. Incidentally, Sally’s father, the man in Cambridge, recalls driving David to a meeting one night when they nearly hit a cow. David’s laconic comment was: ‘It might have had its tail light on!’ Just before going up to Cambridge in the summer of 1962, David and I drove to in a Mini to study German for three weeks. We ran out of petrol on the motorway because David had placed a chart of a book of Scripture over the fuel dial – something we wouldn’t dream of doing today and shouldn’t have done then. In Vienna we visited a very small church where he spoke, and I gave a short talk in German for the first time. Years afterwards I learned from my father that David had mentioned this talk to him, and said, ‘I wonder what John will do in that country in the future.’ It proved to be prophetic.

10 In my second year at Cambridge, David was on sabbatical at Tyn- dale House. I visited him in some distress because I was not finding the Bible very interesting and could not square this with the conviction that it was the inspired word of God. David listened to my distress, and to my surprise responded by bursting out laughing. I was rather put out and asked him why he was laughing. He replied, ‘It’s better to think about that now when you’re nineteen, than wait until you’re fifty.’ He then invited me to a Bible study in the home of his farmer friend, Bill Cowell, promising me a meal of egg and chips prepared by the farmer’s wife, Glenda, before we started. That overcame any resid- ual hesitation I had. It was typical of David to be prepared to spend quality time with people who did not share his educational advantage. That evening was a complete eye opener for me. To my amazement he pinned large sheets of paper on the walls and started summariz- ing the argument of the Gospel of Matthew, all the time talking as if Matthew was in the room. Those studies in that home changed my whole approach to Scripture as I gradually learned the secret of David’s spiritual insight and authority. He expected God to authenticate his word by speaking through it to him, and he was prepared to give the time and energy to studying it until he heard that voice. During my time as a research student we organized several end of year one-day conferences in Roseford Hall, Cambridge, where David teamed up with Stan Ford, a gifted evangelist. The talks in a packed hall were faith-building for many students and others.

Teacher and evangelist

Ireland, both north and south, also proved to be fertile ground for David’s unique insight into Scripture. Many a young person, including my brother Gilbert, summoned up the courage to knock on his door in Queen’s and ask if it might be possible to do some Bible study with him.

11 Such people now look back with gratitude to the revolution in their understanding of Scripture that took place in those Bible studies – and it gave David great satisfaction as he trained the next generation. He was quick to seize the opportunity opened up in 1962 by the Vatican II Council, with its encouragement to study Scripture. That involved frequent visits to often remote monasteries and seminaries to give biblical instruction to very eager audiences of priests and nuns. One permanent result of this was the writing of his evangelistic gem, Windows on Paradise. Its first edition in English was two hundred copies. We had no idea then that one day there would be a million copies in Russian. David also held meetings at Powerscourt in County Wicklow, the scene of similar meetings a century before that had a profound influence on evangelism in Ireland. In more recent times he was invited to Wicklow again, giving evangelistic talks twice a year in Ashford, near Glendalough. Writing to David on his 80th birthday, Arthur Williamson recalls a kaleidoscope of memories: •• of a week at the seaside at Cranfield in a caravan, studying Mat- thew’s Gospel with John Lennox, Stuart Park, Eric Bermejo, and the ex-priest from Spain who spoke of ‘bishbops’ because he couldn’t say bishop; •• of meandering afternoons to Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, to meet Cister- cians; to Roscommon with Divine Word; and to Dublin to speak to discalced Carmelite monks (which means that they went barefoot or in sandals); •• of a tabernacle seminar at Blacklion Monastery and other seminars in Galway and Limerick; •• of Gospel Literature Distribution, camping at Mountshannon, Co. Clare, and a Celtic evening in an ancient church on an island in the lake; •• of an evening in 1976 in Portstewart when David was speaking on Romans. He was reading chapter 7 when the lights went out. While

12 people scrambled around in the dark, checking fuses, David just kept on ‘reading’ the text without hesitation, until the lights came on again.

Traveller

Inevitably, David began to have a greater range beyond the UK. During the 1970s he made regular visits to Spain to speak at camps organized by his long-time missionary friend, Eric Bermejo. On one occasion he invited me to give some talks on Science and Christianity. When I arrived I discovered that he was often giving four expository talks a day in blistering heat in a tent crowded with people. That led to him inviting me back in subsequent years to lessen his burden by doing some Bible expositions myself. He generously undertook to mentor me. That was a daunting prospect, for he was a formidable critic. I recall once after a talk that I had given, he said: ‘Well, you lost them after 5 minutes!’ I felt like going home, but he showed me why he thought I had lost them, and somehow I just about survived to be with you today. It was tough, but the lessons I learned were invaluable; though I must say I did feel at times that enough was enough. As well as many other places in Europe, both east and west, David went to Norway and Denmark, Africa, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Canada and , where his unique expository gifts set many on the path to becoming teachers themselves. In the late seventies I started taking him to the German speaking world, which eventually broadened out to many years of travelling behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to Russia and Ukraine. In the 1980s we mainly visited East Germany, Hungary and Poland. Everywhere he went he took far too many books. His suitcase weighed a ton and, of course, as the younger man I had to carry it. On one occasion he greeted me with great smiles as he pointed to his enor-

13 mous suitcase. To my surprise he had fitted it with large castors—one of the first wheelie-cases ever made, I suspect. He pulled it, or rather I pulled it, with a dog lead that he had thoughtfully supplied. Often I was tasked with publicly translating for him from English to German, and he relished having his fun with that process. It was consecutive translation and he deliberately made the sentences longer and longer so I had to remember more and more. I thought, ‘Right, we shall see about that!’ We continued in this way until he said a very long sentence. I said nothing. He hesitated, then he whispered, ‘Aren’t you going to translate it?’ ‘I already have,’ I replied. I knew him well enough to know in advance exactly what he was going to say. ‘Tscha!’ he said, and went on with his talk. But he was determined to get his own back. He told a joke which consisted of a pun that only worked in English. He paused to look at me, as if to say, ‘What are you going to do now, my boy?’ I didn’t bat an eyelid and continued, and the audience roared with laughter. Afterwards he said, ‘How did you do that?’ ‘It was very simple,’ I replied. ‘I said to the audience that you had told them a joke that only worked in English, so would they please be polite and laugh! So they did.’ ‘Bah!’ he said, and took a swipe at me. He could be great fun at times, and I am sure those of you who knew him well will remember his hearty laugh.

The Myrtlefield Trust

The response to his teaching in these countries made it clear that a concerted effort was required to have his books translated into other languages, as well as bringing together all the recordings of his talks, both from reel-to-reel and cassettes, and later from CDs. This work was carried out by Peter Whyte, mostly from Joe Skelly’s recordings. Accordingly, the Myrtlefield Trust was formed under David’s chair- manship in 1986, the year of his retirement. The first trustees were David, Michael Middleton, Arthur Williamson and myself.

14 I wish to pay explicit tribute to the unstinting, highly professional assistance, way beyond the call of duty, provided by Barbara Hamilton, David’s secretary since 1979, and by her husband Stewart; and later by Josh Fitzhugh and others — assistance that still continues today. David chaired some sixty meetings of the Trust until he was no longer able to do so and the trustees have been joined in recent times by Professors K. O. Lee and Danny Crookes, the latter as Chairman. The Trust has been responsible for bringing David’s books to publi- cation in many languages and has created an accessible digital archive of videos and recordings of his talks. A small team is continuing to produce transcripts, and all of these items are available on the Myrtle- field website, www.myrtlefieldhouse.com.

Russia and Ukraine Back in 1989 the Trust’s remit was widened considerably as a result of the seismic change in Europe, when the communist world collapsed and new countries were opened for the gospel. It was at that time that the Lord opened up the way for me to visit mathematical insti- tutes in Russia as a guest of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The fact that I could lecture in my field in Russian opened many doors, and it soon became possible for the Myrtlefield trustees to visit many parts of Russia and Ukraine. New and unexpected opportunities came our way. One of the most important resulted from a lecture— the first of its kind in 75 years—that I was invited to give by a fellow mathematician, the Rector of the leading university in Siberia, in Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk. The topic was: Why a mathematician believes in a Creator. A reporter from the Academy of Sciences’ newspaper, Poisk, attended the lecture and she subsequently arranged for me to meet the chief editor in Moscow. That meeting was a turning point, in that it led to the publication of two articles on Science and God in that news- paper. The postal response was unprecedented, in terms of requests for

15 more articles. Very soon David and I were running a cottage industry, producing regular articles for Poisk on all kinds of topics to explain Christianity. That access, together with contact with a German believer called Waldemar Murjahn, who had already been getting Christian articles into the press, enabled the Myrtlefield Trustees, particularly Michael Middleton and Arthur Williamson, to connect with other Russian national newspapers.

To recount just a little of the whirlwind activity of those days, Arthur recalls a number of cameos:

•• Waldemar Murjahn at Dusseldorf Airport holding high David’s first book in Russian; •• In Moscow, going to Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga (a book distributing agency), and to Progress Publishers; •• Visiting the US Embassy in Moscow shortly after the failed coup; •• Hanging around Domodedovo Airport for a grim twenty-four hours waiting for a plane to Siberia.

One of my most vivid memories was when a group from Myrtlefield visited Butyrka prison in Moscow to see the work of a group called Spiritual Freedom. We shall never forget speaking with a prisoner on death row who told us how he had found the Lord there, and proudly showed us his copy of Windows on Paradise. We got in touch with the Russian teachers’ newspaper, Uchitelskaja Gazeta, that was read by over a million teachers every week. For a period of two years from 1993, David and I wrote a fortnightly two thousand five hundred words article for that paper in a series entitled The Bible and Ethical Education for Schools. These articles, originally typed by Barbara, were subsequently collected in a book that was distributed to thousands of schools throughout the nation and elicited responses that moved us deeply. Many schools told us that it was the first new book they had ever received.

16 Between 1995 and 1997 we also wrote a series of articles called Key Bible Concepts, which was very widely distributed in book form. Its ori- gins go back to an innovative series of twelve public lectures entitled Christian Foundations that David gave in Armagh in 1962. Key Bible Con- cepts has subsequently been translated into many languages and has been particularly used by pastors, teachers and evangelists as a help to communicate the basics of the gospel. We received, and indeed still do receive, regular reports of people coming to faith in Christ through reading the books.

Worldview Perhaps the most important project in which David and I were involved was the writing of a two-volume school textbook called Worldview. The first volume was entitledThe Human Quest for Significance, and the second, The Search for Reality. Remarkably, this was requested by the education authorities to replace the school books that had been used for years to indoctrinate pupils with Marxist atheistic thought. Our books even carried an official stamp of Government approval to ensure that the schools would use them. Generous donors ensured that the books were distributed in large numbers, not only to schools but also to all public and institutional libraries. It is hard to believe, but we reckon that more than ten million copies were printed. I am sure that David has now begun to experience the harvest that has resulted from people coming through them to faith in Christ. This Worldview textbook was groundbreaking. It discussed the answers that various worldviews give to the big questions of existence, including the biblical worldview; comparing and contrasting their values and the sense they make of the universe and our human lives and behaviour. These volumes took many years of hard work; David was the driving force and I was his apprentice. I confess that this process was painful at times, since David was retired and I was not. However, I am deeply grateful for it as it taught me how to write. These

17 books, called The Quest, are now available in English in six volumes under the Myrtlefield House logo, thanks to the untiring efforts of Josh Fitzhugh, Peter Whyte, Barbara Hamilton, and Matthew Craig.

Seminars with senior teachers During the 1990s all this writing was done alongside regular visits to Russia and Ukraine. The Ukrainian regional educational authorities were very keen for us to train their teachers in the use of the World- view books, and we visited many parts of Ukraine for official weekend conferences with senior teachers called metodisti, or methodologists, who each had supervisory authority over many junior teachers. They always welcomed us most warmly and treated David with great respect as a father figure. He enjoyed that immensely, and in return enthralled them with his capacity to communicate ideas that were entirely new for them. The believers among them were especially heartened by these visits. On one occasion we were invited to attend a national gathering of heads of colleges and universities. The chair of the meeting pub- licly thanked us for the books and candidly admitted that they were ashamed that no-one in Ukraine could have written them. Because of their communist past they had no experience of writing books that taught pupils to think, rather than simply promoting the standard rote learning. It was a unique historical moment and David and I were well aware of its significance for the education of a nation.

Personal work and priorities

David welcomed streams of visitors from home and abroad to his house in Myrtlefield Park. Some came for Bible study and others for personal help. Many could testify to the spiritual and psychological help that he was able to give based on his understanding of human nature. He was a teacher par excellence, often using odd, and therefore

18 memorable, ways of putting things across. Alec Motyer, a great friend, recalls David explaining the deadness of heathen gods, to the effect that, ‘Poor Diana of the Ephesians was so dead that she actually fell out of heaven!’ David had a special place in his heart for missionary work. He spoke at many missionary conferences around the world and visited missionaries in their own fields of service to help with their work by taking special meetings and studies. Indeed, David’s teaching was permeated from end to end by the desire to get across the glory and wonder of the gospel message. In his book An Unshakeable Kingdom he wrote,

It is a straightforward fact of history that the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus have given us a world figure who fits Isaiah’s predictions with unfailing accuracy. But more than that. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus untold millions have actually found the healing Isaiah talked of: healing of the heart’s deepest wounds, the removal of the plague of guilt, the end to alienation from their Creator, to feelings of hostility and rebellion towards God; reconciliation, peace, and the enjoyment of God’s love, and bright hope for the future. This is the beginning of the promised new ‘age to come’! This is the very dawn of heaven. The healing of the human heart is the necessary prelude to the healing of the universe.

One of ’s greatest Christian exports was C. S. Lewis; one of its greatest imports was David Gooding. Both were thorough- going supernaturalists, convinced not only of the reality of the eternal world but also of the supreme importance of investing their lives in it. David was once asked if he believed in heaven. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I go there every day!’ He loved to expound the book of Hebrews, and especially to explain just what has been achieved through the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ – that a new and living way has been opened up to which believers have immediate and full access.

19 David took full advantage of that access and encouraged us to do so. His writings are full of the gospel of forgiveness on which that access is based. David Gooding was not perfect. It would contradict all that he stood for, if we were to suggest he had no sin or flaw. He once wrote, ‘Though God gives us times of great spiritual enjoyment, sooner or later he allows things to become difficult, so that he might develop us, and so that we get more out of spiritual life.’ David had his flaws, disappointments, and difficulties with which he had to contend. He was not always right and he needed forgiveness like the rest of us. He was wont to say that the Lord’s prayer teaches us that there are two things we all need every day – food and forgiveness. We tend to notice the absence of the first, but not the absence of the second. For that reason, David constantly stressed the heart of the gospel message, and never better than in his book Windows on Paradise. He loved explaining to believers the grounds for our certainty. Firstly, that God accepts us, not on the basis of our merit, but because Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification. Secondly, that we have the ascended Lord as a great high priest at the right hand of God, who ever lives to make intercession for us. That message, which has helped thousands around the world to find assurance, formed the heart of his book An Unshakeable Kingdom.

What he was looking forward to

We shall never again hear that unforgettable voice saying, ‘D’you see, my boy’ – on earth at least – though I imagine David would have had a view on whether such linguistic idiosyncrasies are retained in heaven! He knows now, for he is enjoying the fruit of a life single-mindedly invested in the eternal world. Many times he reminded us to use all the gifts God has given us to do what the Lord Jesus said: ‘Make friends who will receive you into the eternal habitations’ (see Luke 16:9). I am sure

20 David has begun to meet some of these friends. What a homecoming! Finally, I well recall him introducing Revelation 4 by saying, ‘There is a door open in heaven; let us have a look at what is inside.’ We thank the Lord today for using David to open a stunning vista of that glori- ous world beyond the door. He has gone through that door and is now and forever in the immediate presence of the Lord he loved. No, not quite — I should say, the Lord he still loves, for ‘God is not the God of the dead, but of the living’ (Mark 12:27). David was once asked what he wished to be inscribed on his headstone. ‘Not here!’ he instantly replied. — Not here, but with the Lord. Though we mourn his passing, he would wish that we too should rejoice in the certainty he had, and one day join him to be together with the Lord forever.

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