The Man in the Iron Cage

The Character and Condition of an Apostate

In Bunyan’s classic allegory of Christian’s journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, one of the most striking and horrifying sights is the man confined in the iron cage of despair. His hopeless, miserable, irrevocable condition is set before Christian to warn against the damning sins that lead to apostasy and, at last, to hell. Here one should learn to keep watch over his own soul and to make his calling and election sure, lest he prove reprobate, false, and deceived. While it is not possible for a true child of God to apostatize, it certainly is possible for one who thinks he is a true child of God to do so.

Apostasy is not a concept with which most modern evangelical Christians are at all familiar. In this day it seems that every profession of faith in Jesus is regarded genuine and soul-saving, as long as it is sincere. Sincerity and tears sway us into thinking that any person who professes to know and love Jesus actually does savingly know and love Him. Should such a sincere person turn out to be a hypocrite who ultimately turns away from Christ and the gospel in his heart, that person is still thought to be sure for heaven because of a twisted understanding of ‘eternal security.’

The apostate man in Bunyan, forever bound in the iron cage of despair until he is cast into everlasting flames, is certainly an allegorical man. It is one in ten thousand (if that many) who will ever admit to his own apostasy (or even understand it for what it is) as the man in Bunyan’s story. Most apostates equivocate, split doctrinal hairs, and continue to present themselves as true Christians, only believers with areas of struggle and difficulty; they are, in fact, aliens to the life of God, have never loved Jesus Christ, nor were they ever regenerated by the Spirit-power of saving grace. They heard the gospel declared in the Spirit’s power and experienced something spiritually real, and then trifled with it. They took holy truths into their hands and treated them as playthings. Their pretended love for Christ was always counterfeit; yet one more deception of themselves and others.

Many Christians have no concept that apostasy is real, even though it is evident all around us. Many whom the people of God have regarded as ‘carnal Christians’ are certainly apostates. They once thought themselves sure for heaven and made a good show of it; but secretly their hearts are so hardened against Christ that they cannot repent. These will never be saved. Hear the man describe himself and the sins that sealed his soul up to despair and eternal loss.

“I am now a man of despair, and am shut up in it, as in this iron cage. I cannot get out; Oh now I cannot!” “…I left off to watch and be sober: I laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the word, and the goodness of God; I have grieved the Spirit, and he is gone; I tempted the devil, and he is come to me; I have provoked God to anger, and he has left me: I have so hardened my heart, that I cannot repent.” “…I have crucified him to myself afresh; I have despised his person; I have despised his righteousness; I have counted his blood an unholy thing; I have done despite to the spirit of grace: therefore I have shut myself out of all the promises and there now remains to me nothing but threatenings, dreadful threatenings, faithful threatenings of certain judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour me as an adversary.”

The reason for any person’s apostasy is his own sin and wickedness of heart and willful rejection of the gospel and its promises. We must never blame divine sovereignty for anyone’s apostasy. It was out of the rich goodness of God that the apostate once perceived enlightenment through the preaching of the gospel. It was from God’s goodness that he tasted the powers of the age to come and received the clear light of the gospel and got a certain taste of the good Word of God.

What a testimony to the necessity of regenerating grace the apostate person is! No matter how many sweet favors are ours through the goodness of God, our wicked hearts would cast them all back into the face of God apart from regenerating grace! It is the wretched sin of the sinner that damns him and seals him up to lasting hopelessness. Be sure of this: every apostate, like a madman, drives headlong to hell trampling underfoot the eternal Son of God, regarding Jesus’ blood as worthless as dung.

While there may be sadness and despair in the heart of an apostate, there is never repentance. Repentance flees where there is no humility, no sorrow for sin, and no turning to Christ. Matters are so much the worse because of the tremendous privileges the apostate person enjoyed, but then ultimately despised and refused the Savior of men.

Christian asked the caged man why: “For what did you bring yourself into this condition?” His reply is chilling. “…For the lusts, pleasures, and profits of this world; in the enjoyment of which I did then promise myself much delight: but now every one of those things also bite me, and gnaw me like a burning worm.” Thinking of his own conversion and knowing the tenderness of Jesus, Christian wonders at the man; why he does not simply change his mind and turn? The man answers: “God hath denied me repentance. His word gives me no encouragement to believe; yea, himself hath shut me up in this iron cage: nor can all the men in the world let me out. Oh eternity! eternity! how shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet with in eternity?” How strange this is to the modern evangelical’s ears; but it represents a spiritual truth too quickly and too easily dismissed in this time by those who profess to be wise, yet who know nothing as they ought to know it.

This man in the iron cage had Bunyan’s knowledge of Scripture to fill his mouth with a true report of his soul’s condition. Most apostates walking about in this world continue to play out the scene, as if nothing is amiss and their hope of heaven remains sure. The reality is that there are far more people than we realize, people with whom we brush elbows day by day, who are sealed up in the sins they love. They cannot repent. Their coming misery is yet to be comprehended, for only eternity will measure their bloodguilt, they who have trampled underfoot God’s Darling Son and done despite to the Spirit of grace.

The apostate’s misery is a dreadful warning to every true saint. True saints keep watch over their souls; to live in disobedience to God’s Word while holding a Christian profession is to tempt God and to run the risk of personal apostasy. True saints live in love with Jesus and more and more despise their sins. True saints are aware that they could as easily have been deceived; they “make their calling and election sure” by a constant appeal to the unfailing promises of the gospel. They realize that they are only “accepted in the Beloved.” The redeemed take refuge in Jesus alone. To us His blood is most precious, because only by His cross do we have the sure hope of heaven. True saints trust not their own hearts, deceitful as they are; but they do trust the heart of their Savior who takes away their despair, replacing it with everlasting hope and joy for the journey. -TSA