“Not everyone who calls out to me,
‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter.
Matthew 7:21

Read: Matthew 7:13-29, John 10:1-9
Pilgrim’s Progress Stage 3 Part 4

Relate: Not long after leaving Simple, Sloth, and Presumption behind, Christian encounters two more travelers who come tumbling over the wall on the left-hand side of the road. Their names are Formalist and Hypocrisy, and they have a very reasonable explanation for why they didn’t bother with the Wicket Gate. The way over the wall is shorter. It has been done this way for thousands of years. Custom, they explain, is just as good as law. Anyway, they argue, as long as you are on the road, what does it matter how you got there? The destination is the same, isn’t it? Apparently, they didn’t pay attention to the all important Stormlight maxim: “Journey before Destination.” (Let us all now take a moment of silence for the decline and fall of a once great author and series.)

Formalist and Hypocrisy seem genuinely puzzled by Christian’s discomfort with their shortcut. He keeps walking. So do they. For a while, at least. But that won’t last. Bunyan is cutting right to the heart of religious formalism. There is a tendency among some churches and cultural Christians to maintain all the external markers of Christian life while bypassing the transforming entry point of genuine conversion. Jesus said He is the Gate. Anyone who did not go through Him is not on the right road, no matter how it might look to others. Christian is on the right road. They are on the same road. But it does not matter. They are still on the wrong road.

React: Formalist and Hypocrisy know this wrong road. They can walk it. They can likely recite the mile markers. The modern version of F&H might be attending our services. They might be using all the right language. They carry themselves as Christians (pilgrims). But they never went through the gate. They were never confronted with their sin. The burden was never laid down at the cross. They have never received new clothes and a sealed roll. They are performing a pilgrimage that, for them, was never preceded by a changed life. And the tragedy is, they can’t see the difference. Custom has convinced them the wall is just as good as the gate. It has been done this way for so long. Who are we to say otherwise?

As I write, this past Sunday was Mother’s Day. Were there versions of Formalist and Hypocrisy walking around our church parking lots on that day? A few weeks earlier was Easter. Are there any Christmas and Easter “pilgrims” floating around who think they can occasionally show up on special days like these and call it the right road? Are there pastors in our churches who did not take advantage of these golden opportunities to point them toward the gate?

Let’s dig a little deeper. Is there a version of Formalist or Hypocrisy staring back at me every morning in the mirror? This is a question Bunyan intended every reader to sit with. The difference between genuine faith and its religious counterfeit is often invisible from the outside. They are on the same road, going the same direction, and having the same general conversation. The difference is the cross. Did you go through the Gate? Was there a moment when the burden fell? Are you wearing your own rags or someone else’s righteousness? Formalist and Hypocrisy will not make it to the end of Stage Three. But they won’t know why. They’ll think the road failed them. They won’t understand that they never really got on it.

Respond:

Dear God,
I thank You for the Gate. I thank You that You have made a way for me to get on the road to heaven. Help me to understand that not everyone who seems to be on that road truly is. Help me to continue pointing to that Gate, to You, whether the person I am talking with has never seen the road, or has been seemingly walking it for years. You alone truly know the condition of a person’s heart.
Amen