A lion of the pulpit, now in Christ’s presence

He was the greatest expositor of his times. One of the ironies of John MacArthur is that, to the end, he insisted that any God-called preacher of the Word could do what he did. There was great truth in that claim, of course. After all, what MacArthur meant was that preaching comes down to the exposition of God’s Word before God’s people, and that meant studying God’s Word with diligence and then standing before a congregation to read and explain that scriptural text. Any God-called preacher can do that. Every preacher should do that, even must do that. On the other hand, John MacArthur was uniquely gifted as an expositor, and he was uniquely faithful as well. He was a preacher God used to make other preachers better preachers.

He was the son and grandson of preachers. His grandfather was Anglican and Canadian. John MacArthur’s father, John Fullerton MacArthur, Sr, known as Jack, was a leading independent Baptist preacher who was glad to be called a fundamentalist. John was born in Los Angeles, where his father was already a well-known and respected preacher. John would follow in this father’s footsteps, enrolling at Bob Jones University. That didn’t go so well and John would eventually play football and graduate from Los Angeles Pacific College. At that point his studies grew more serious at Talbot Theological Seminary, part of Biola University. He graduated in 1963.

John had worked on staff with his father and developed as a preacher and by 1969 he was ready for his own church. In God’s providence that church was Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, north of Los Angeles. His first sermon as a young pastor set the stage for what became a ministry with international reach. That sermon was unusually long for a young preacher, but it turned out to be a pointer to a very long and very powerful ministry.

By the time John MacArthur became pastor at Grace Community Church, Southern California was already known as an unprecedented laboratory for big things. As the population doubled, then tripled, and kept growing, Southern California became a leading indicator for America as a whole. Its youth culture was massive, fueled by the Baby Boom. Its economy was legendary. The region’s reputation as “where the future took place first” was grounded in the film industry, television, real estate, high education, and what would later be called cultural production. Oddly enough, it was an incubator for what became both “red” and “blue” America. It was also Ground Zero for the sexual revolution and the emergence of a culture marked by personal autonomy, expressive individualism, and progressivist ideologies.

Some of that was already evident in 1969, but Sun Valley pretty much looked like the other suburban areas in the increasingly populous and ever-expanding Los Angeles region. At the same time, the entire region was a cornucopia of religion, offering just about every form of religion imaginable. In terms of Christianity, you could find Protestant liberalism in the mainline churches and just about every form and flavor of evangelicalism, from dispensationalists with overhead projectors to entrepreneurial church planters pioneering “seeker sensitive” models of church. Charismatic mega-churches were emerging, as were prosperity preachers. Robert Schuller founded the Garden Grove Community Church, later the Crystal Cathedral, in 1955. Let’s just say that John MacArthur was doing something different at Grace Community Church when he became pastor in 1969. He started preaching, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book. As a young man, he had hoped to preach through the entire New Testament, verse by verse. That was accomplished, by the way, on June 5, 2011. Sunday by Sunday, passage by passage, he studied the text, then read and explained the text ... faithfully and powerfully.

Under John’s preaching, church attendance doubled, then did so again. It grew into the multiple thousands, leading to a near-constant process of growth and development at the church. His sermons were made available on cassette tapes and then they were broadcast on radio (and eventually streamed on the internet). Untold thousands listened to John’s sermons, one after the other.

He grew as a preacher and his public influence grew explosively. If you listen to a message from his early ministry at Grace and compare it to his later years, you will not find any difference in conviction. What you do find is a growing depth of understanding and a greater sense of biblical theology, joined to a more comprehensive understanding of theological structure. MacArthur was a dispensationalist, but he described himself as “leaky.” As he preached through the New Testament, his preaching became more evidently Reformed and Calvinistic. As he said, he was simply reading and explaining the text. He refused to read a Pauline text, for example, and then try to explain that it doesn’t mean what it says. That was anathema to John MacArthur.

His preaching would be channeled into a commentary series on the entire New Testament and a massive study Bible. His teaching ministry reached nation after nation, on various platforms. The extension of his teaching ministry, Grace to You, reaches around the globe.

In terms of his style, there was more there than John MacArthur recognized in himself. His steady delivery, careful cadences, and deliberate pauses were distinctives of his homiletical style. He didn’t really want to admit that he had a style, but he did. It was just disciplined by the text and the task. He rarely told stories, and he didn’t use what other preachers would call “illustrations.” He explained one text by another text, and he constantly connected texts. He built an edifice of preaching, verse by verse, leaving the congregation eager to start again next time at the next verse. But his personality did show through, certainly more than he himself believed. All he had to do was lift his eyebrows, which he did for emphasis. His commitment to exposition meant that he was frequently looking down at his Bible. He knew exactly when to look up, and exactly how to look at the congregation for emphasis.

He was not afraid to enter theological battles. In 1988 he released The Gospel According to Jesus, launching an assault on those who denied that the gospel of Jesus Christ requires both faith and repentance, response and obedience. His case was made by scriptural texts, but they were connected in a clear hermeneutic of the gospel. Later, he would take on the embarrassing excesses of the charismatic movement in Charismatic Chaos in 1992, and he was always unafraid to aim fire at any form of theological liberalism or compromise.

MacArthur understood the power of influence. Furthermore, he loved preachers. He loved being with preachers. He loved talking about preaching, and he was possessed by a drive to help other preachers. This urgency was transformed into what became the Shepherds Conference, year after year. The conferences became gathering events for preachers committed to exposition. John MacArthur never seemed more alive, or more at home, than when being with fellow preachers, preaching to preachers. His influence among and through other preachers will be his most lasting legacy beyond Grace Community Church.

That same vision led to the establishment of The Master’s Theological Seminary in 1986, just one year after agreeing to serve as president of Los Angeles Baptist College, now known as The Master’s University.

I had the great privilege of knowing John MacArthur as a friend. He gave me many opportunities to preach with him and to his people, especially at Shepherds Conferences. We preached together in so many settings and spent much time together. He joined us at Together for the Gospel (t4g) and encouraged so greatly. John MacArthur made a massive impact on my life, and I saw him in so many different settings, from his home to so many public events. He was the same, constantly. He was generous and gracious and kind, even as he had the courage of a lion.

Our hearts go out to his devoted wife of so many decades, Patricia, and to his children and their spouses and a great host of children and great-grandchildren. We also pray for Grace Community Church as the congregation mourns the death of their pastor and looks to the future with hope.

John MacArthur will be greatly missed and deeply mourned. He demonstrated faithfulness over a long lifetime of honorable ministry—a remarkable gift to Christ’s church. His race is now complete—and what a remarkable race it was. But, remember this: Pastor John MacArthur would be the first to say that the priority above all other priorities is that the faithful exposition of Holy Scripture continue until Jesus comes. Soli Deo Gloria.

Editor's note: This column was first published on July 14, 2025.