Alistair Begg reflects on the life, legacy, and influence of John MacArthur, who died on July 14, 2025.
Video Transcript:
In 2 Samuel we have the memorable phrase where the king turns to his servants, and he says, “Do you know that a prince this day has fallen in Israel—a prince and a great man?”1 That context is very different, but when I learned the news in the last couple of days of John’s death, it was that particular verse—that battle scene, if you like—that came to mind.
And I think it’s fair, because in the warfare of the church militant, John has been over all these years such a servant and a stalwart and an unashamed defender of the truth. And many of us—and I mean many of us—have been able on the difficult days or the disappointing days, at least in our mind’s eye, to be able to look across the field of battle, as it were, and see him there. And just his very presence in his pulpit and in the ministry that God gave him has been a strengthening thing to us all. We could see him there, as it were, in full battle dress, shirt and tie—striped tie, often—taking very seriously the responsibility and privilege of pulpit ministry.
I remember on one occasion, he and I were talking, and we were reflecting on the verse in Malachi which says, “The lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.”2 I think as much as anybody in my lifetime—living people, at least—John was completely convinced that the health of the church was tied directly to the health of the pulpit.
And he for all of his life was unashamed in proclaiming “the old, old story.”3 He understood, as C. S. Lewis in one of his books says, that any attempt either in literature, art, and certainly in preaching—attempts at originality are almost destined to fail. And Lewis says there, “Just tell the truth, and don’t care about whether you’re original or not, and nine times out of ten, you’ll actually have proved to be original in what you’re doing.4
And that is something of a legacy that we all should cherish. Because in all the passing fads and fancies of the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first—all the things that have come to us and alongside us in the course of church life—many of them are long gone. But once again, John was reminding us that the grass withers, the flower falls, and the Word of the Lord endures forever.5
I think it is just that picture of John in his pulpit, with an open Bible, that has not only stood the test of time, but it also has marked the lives of many of us. As a younger man—I met him when I was twenty-seven—I actually had the privilege of welcoming him to Scotland for the first time. And here we are, all these years later, and the impact that was made then and the ongoing impact is something that I, along with so many, appreciate greatly.
John was convinced of what Gresham Machen on one occasion wrote: that
it is with the open Bible that the real Christian preacher comes before his congregation. He does not come to present his own opinions. He does not come to present the results of his researches in the phenomena of religion, but he comes to set forward what is contained in the Word of God.
And John I think just masterfully, by example, made it clear to all of us who were following him, who in many ways were standing on his shoulders, that the Word of God does the work of God by the Spirit of God in the people of God—that he was proclaiming the one Word of the one true God about the one way of salvation through the one Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so, now, as we have occasion to reflect, we recognize that his absence from us here in the church militant means his presence there in the church triumphant. And it is for that reason that we can stand side by side and send our love and the assurance of our prayers to Grace Church; to his widow, Pat; to his children, Marcy and Melinda, Mark and Matthew; and to all who miss him with great freshness in these days.
All of us will have our own personal fond remembrances of John, pictures that come to mind. And one that will fill my gaze often is the description that Paul gave of Tychicus as “a beloved brother,” a “faithful minister,” and a “fellow servant in the Lord.”6 Along with many today, I retain that picture, and I thank God for every remembrance of John as an example, as a pastor, as a husband, as a friend on the golf course, and as someone to whom I looked and from whom I learned and whose memory I will cherish.