Dr Ted Herbert : For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.....

Yesterday I attended the Thanksgiving service for the life of Dr Ted Herbert, Vice Principal of International Christian College. The service expressed some of the deepest realities of Christian faith - hope through Jesus Christ, gratitude for a life so fully and fruitfully lived, celebration of a life given to the service of Christ and His Church, and a recognition of the loss and sorrow that inevitably accompanies the death of someone so deeply loved and widely held in high esteem.

We learned much about this loveable and energetic man. His friend from student days spoke of Ted's integrity, ability to bring people together, unpretentious enthusiasm for learning and his obvious but never ostentatious intellectual gifts. Dr Tony Sargent described Ted as a cedar of Lebanon - tall, straight, and life enhancing and life giving. The personal relationship between himself and Ted was shared movingly and with a great sense of affection and of the co-operative partnership they had shared in the work of ICC and in wider theological education.

While the service affirmed the hope of the Gospel and something of the deep gratitude to God Ted had himself expressed during the weeks of his illness, the service nevertheless held the important balance between gratitude and hope filled faith, and the personal sense of loss that follows Ted's death, particularly for his family and colleagues. Glory tinged with sadness, and sadness suffused with the hope of glory.

On discovering the seriousness of his illness, Ted made it clear from the outset that he would live his final weeks as he had lived his life, - trusting in God for strength, depending on the grace that is sufficient, living gratefully and joyfully out of the faith that so animated and vitalised him. An email from him, responding to my own sent to him after his illness was announced, carried his usual friendly and open interest, and was a brief reassurance to those like myself who were concerned at the news. His testimony given recently to the College students, and to his own church community at Bearsden Baptist, can be heard here on Youtube.

This is one of the most remarkable testimonies I have ever heard, as Ted talks with humble confidence, with an unmistakable tone of peaceable and restful trust, and with unqualified gratitude to God for his life. No complaints or questions, just a sustained note of gratitude for what has been. When someone facing a terminal illness says he is in a win win situation because if God heals him God is glorified, and if not he will be himself in glory, it is hard not to wonder at the grace that enables such courage.

The many tributes paid by students and former students, by friends and those who owe much in their own spiritual experience to Ted's witness and friendship have been gathered on the ICC website here. My own comment I have copied below, because it says much that we want to express as a College to Diana, Joy and David, to our colleagues in Christ at ICC, and to the students and countless others who give thanks to God for Ted's life.

As a brother in Christ and as a colleague in the work of Christian training, I quickly came to appreciate Ted's spiritual, personal, intellectual and adminsitrative gifts. Over the years his pivotal and guiding role in ICC has been both highly significant and very fruitful in the work of God's Kingdom, seeing the College become a leading training resource within and beyond the UK. I pass on the condolences of the staff, students and others in the Scottish Baptist College community, assuring Diana and Ted's family of our prayers that they will continue to know the strength of which Ted so movingly spoke in his testimony. Our prayers too for the Principal and all the staff and students at ICC as you go through a period of major readjustment. The sovereign love of God keep and guide Ted's family, and sustain the wider family with whom he worked in the service of Christ. And may the peace of Christ strengthen our faith and hope, and enable us to give thanks for a life in Christ, faithfully lived.

Posted By Jim Gordon