From that spot in the Lake District of central England, the lofty view looking down Derwentwater has made overcomers out of otherwise common men. For a victorious location, the town of Keswick was chosen for annual conventions that began in the 1870’s under the leadership of Robert Pearsall and Hannah Whitall Smith (author of The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life) and Hanmer William Webb-Peploe. Today what are called “identification” truths are a carryover of “deeper life” teaching, “victorious life” teaching, or “Keswick” teaching. In the 1870’s an annual conference at Keswick became a popular inter-denominational gathering place for men like F. B. Meyer, and Grattan Guinness. By teaching Romans 6, 7 & 8 as keys to a higher plain of spirituality, Christians saw the possibilities for personal holiness and victory over sin without falling into the errors of perfectionism. Watchman Nee in his books The Normal Christian Life and The Release of the Spirit gives prime examples of the best things taught in these conferences.
Hudson Taylor, C. I. Scofield, L. S. Chafer and other prominent preachers and Bible teachers have been stirred and moved by the Keswick movement. After World War II the Keswick emphasis took hold of American Fundamentalism under such men as W. Ian Thomas, Alan Redpath, and Stephen Olford.
George W. Dollar, in his book, A History of Fundamentalism in America (1973), gives a critique on page 191,
Deeper Life conferences, stressing and preaching the victorious life and the Lordship of Christ, have been widely accepted. The movement has been very influential in such places as Columbia Bible College in Columbia, South Carolina, Moody Church in Chicago, Calvary Baptist Church in New York, and Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills, Alberta. Many pastors and churches have resorted to this special brand of spiritual uplift, which offers unusual guidance in the life of the individual Christian. It is experience-centered, and that has a sparkling appeal to emotion hunters and frustrated believers. It is a ‘honey and sugar’ type of sanctification and as such has wide glamour in a day of spiritual breakdowns and tensions.
There are three cautions about the Keswick emphasis.
1. The emphasis on a two-class Christianity. This appears by amplifying the Carnal Christian idea as dealt with in 1 Corinthians 3. For instance, some Deeper Life teachers give the impression that in Romans 8 Paul is speaking about three people: the natural man (who is not converted), the carnal man (who walks after the flesh but is really an “unsurrendered” Christian), and the spiritual man (who walks after the Spirit and is a “surrendered” Christian). But when you read the first seventeen verses of Romans 8, are there really three kinds of people there, or only two? The plain reading of the text tells me there are two. One is in the flesh and he walks after the flesh; the second is in the Spirit and he walks after the Spirit.
This distinction is important because there is a big difference between a stumbling Christian who is carnal, and a wicked person who has never surrendered to Christ, and therefore has no evidences of new life. If we take a description of the man in the flesh, who walks in the flesh, and think that there Paul is speaking of true Christians, we are making a huge loophole that allows for empty professors of Christianity, who are wicked and unrepentant, to be thought of as genuine Christians.
2. The emphasis on the crisis. Growing out of the idea of two-class Christianity is the need for a mechanism to launch the hum-drum, low-level Christian to this higher life. Christians are not strangers to the dramatic experience. Not every conversion is an explosion of emotion, but some are, and throughout the Christian pilgrimage many have experienced crises. But is it the crisis we are seeking, or the Christ? A crisis there may be, but it is not a requirement for true spirituality.
3. The Keswick emphasis on being yielded. The slogan “Let go and let God” is pure Keswick thinking and Miles J. Stanford (author of The Green Papers) was forever telling people that it is wrongheaded to “strive” in the Christian life. But is biblical faith passive? Jesus told His disciples to “strive to enter in at the narrow gate.” The writer of the Hebrews talks about how his hearers “have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” James 2 speaks about two kinds of faith: one is a dead faith which has no works; the other is a living faith which is proven by works. We gather, then, that living faith is not passive, but active. As in Hebrews 11, faith actively does things. By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice; Noah built an ark; Abraham offered Isaac; and Moses forsook Egypt. By faith people energetically “embraced” God’s promises all throughout that chapter. Paul speaks in Galatians about “faith working by love.” Contrary to brother Stanford’s persistent claims, faith in God is not passive.
On the plus side, the Keswick movement has taught us the words of Romans 6: know, reckon, yield. The Bible does not teach a self-improvement program for the flesh; rather, the work of Christ condemns the flesh. The true way to victory over self and sin is not in improving our incurable sin-nature, but in replacing it, as is clearly taught in Galatians 2:20.