Who was Gisle Johnson?

"People poured into the meeting place and sat spellbound while he spoke, often for as long as two hours. His words seemed to grip his hearers with an almost mystic power. He was not an emotional preacher, but he was a strong preacher of repentance. One is reminded of the awakening under Jonathan Edwards when one reads about Johnson that when in a thin and quiet voice he read the words ‘There is no peace for the ungodly, saith my God’ a visible tremor ran through the audience."

“I was so gripped by the forcefulness and the interest of Johnson's lectures that on more than one occasion he caught himself sitting with mouth open and pen fallen on the desk completely fascinated by the address.”

These are first-hand testimonies to Gisle Johnson's effectiveness in preaching and lecturing, the result of a life totally devoted to Jesus Christ.

Gisle Johnson was a theologian, a preacher, and a father; the founder of his namesake movement, "The Johnsonian Revivals," he was also a member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, a Knight in the Order of St. Olav (Commander 1st class), founder of the Lutheran Church Journal (Luthersk Kirketidende) the Norwegian Luther Foundation (Den norske Lutherstiftelse), and (with Caspari) the annual publication Theologisk Tidskrift for den evangelisk-lutherske Kirke i Norge, president of the Norwegian Inner Mission Society, and obtained an honorary doctorate from the University of Copenhagen. Yet during his life, he embodied the task of the Christian in ever-approaching the infinite simplicity of the gospel. Throughout his life he strove to articulate 'the faith once for all given to the saints.'

A professor at the University of Oslo (then Kristiana), Gisle taught theology, ethics, and historical dogmatics for forty years. During that time his revival movement swept across Norway, fundamentally altering the spiritual landscape of his home country. Thanks to his confessional and biblical teaching, Gisle's influence effectively eradicated heretical teaching from Norway during a time in which the Norwegian Lutheran Church was coming into independence; likewise, Gisle's theology would influence generation of Norwegian immigrants to the United States such as Georg Sverdrup and August Weenaas, who would utilize Gisle's thought in their own lectures.

Gisle's legacy of faithfulness is thus embodies his own teaching: “The purpose of the Christian faithlife therefore becomes, more precisely, the perfection of the individual Child of God and the entire Kingdom of God, and the complete deliverance of both from the misery of sin and death to true, eternal life in God” (Historical Dogmatics). Gisle's character was such that he would open his home to his students, and Trygve Skarsten writes,

"Every other Saturday evening the theological students had a standing invitation to come to the home of Gisle Johnson. These gatherings were not just theological 'bull sessions' with the professor. From Gisle Johnson's side, they were an attempt to lead the students into a personal type of Christianity and a living faith. The sessions were always informal, full of fun and laughter. Toward the close of the evening Gisle Johnson would usually lead in devotions."

This living faithfulness was not only seen in his teaching, but embodied in his personal character and home life. His youngest son, Jonathan Johnson, wrote of his home life,

"What characterized life there first and foremost was the healthy, fully realized Christianity. The house service was never neglected. Every single morning at 7 o'clock we sat together; the children were supposed to be at school at 8 o'clock and had to have a word of God with them. Before the service, father would go for a walk to Sankthanshaugen, winter and summer, while mother, however, out in the spacious entrance hall (the hallway), would speak warmly and fervently to the one or more of the poor, mostly men, who came, especially to get their hot porridge and milk, but also to hear the service. I have never understood what lured them there. But they came. When the service began, they moved into the main room with its bench."

Such was Johnson's life, a life of devotion to Christ bracketing by his father's early admonition and his final deathbed confession:

"You took a step when you came into this life. Another stands before you today. It leads to death, not to physical but to eternal death, if you forget what you are today promising this world’s Father and Judge. May confirmation remind you that today you are stepping out on your own, that you have to answer for your deeds as you grow away more and more from your dear parents who kept you from falling by the help of God. May confirmation remind you, in a most solemn manner, that you have promised to keep yourself to the one true God and to Jesus Christ as your one and only sure guide in life"

"On July 17, 1894 he died in his sleep. During his last days he spoke of the nearness of his salvation in Christ. On the day before his death when questioned as to whether or not he held firmly to reconciliation in Christ, he answered, 'Ja visselig' (yes, certainly). Those were his last words."

Gisle left four bodies of major works as the products of his lectureship: his Systematic Theology in Two Parts, containing Pistik and Dogmatic, his Christian Ethics, and his Historical Dogmatics. They stand as integral parts in a remarkably consistent system, a system marked by fidelity to Scripture, adherence to Lutheran confessionalism, and innovative engagement with contemporary streams of thought. Whereas many theologians might have gone astray in the milieu of modernist philosophy and theology, Gisle had studied with and read vociferously the leading continental figureheads of his time, even resources their concepts into his own, and yet remaining faithful to the contours of biblical theology. Sadly, none of his works have been published in English. Although used as textbooks by Scandinavian communities well into the 20th century, they never saw a reprint beyond the 1898 edition. The Gisle Johnson Project seeks to change this by highlighting the significant of an all-but-forgotten theologian, bringing him into the contemporary theological conversation to highlight the uniqueness of his pietistic and dogmatic theology.

See also:

https://thegateway.press/theology-the-norwegian-way-the-curious-case-of-gisle-johnson/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gisle_Johnson