The Church must swiftly recover the evangelistic meaning of the whole range of Christian theology
A theologian may share the platform with an evangelist, but he rarely fills his shoes. Despite the example of the Apostle Paul, theology and evangelism have gone their separate ways—often with harsh words for each other.
This disjunction is not only dangerous; for Christian theology and evangelism it is inadmissible. Christian theology is evangelical; it is gospel theology. Because theology and evangelism are unified in the Gospel, there is little use in trying to isolate a special “theology of evangelism.” Instead we need to recover the evangelistic meaning of the whole range of Christian theology, and at the same time to recognize the “gospel structure” that biblical theology already has.
Theological evangelism has one grand advantage: it forces us to begin with God. So Paul began in his Epistle to the Romans with “the Gospel of God” (1:1). Only when we know the Gospel of God are we ready to hear it in the Church or bear it to the world.
A “church-centered” theology of evangelism peers anxiously from the spires of Christendom at the population explosion of the non-Christian world. Without asking what the Gospel is or what the Church is, it seeks more effective techniques. To be sure, after the gospel calling of the Church has been clearly grasped, fruitful questions may be asked about the witness of the laity, the ministry of mercy, the principles of church growth. But the calling of the Church begins where theology begins—with God, who calls and sends. To seek a “theology” for an enterprise or structure we have already defined is to court illusion. We may find only what we are looking for.
The swing from “church-centered” evangelism to “world-centered” evangelism moves from danger to disaster. Advocates of the new “secular Christianity” condemn a “supernaturalistic” view of revelation. They deny that “the human mind can apprehend a fixed reality transcending experience which provides an unchanging criterion for faith and action” (Gibson Winter, The New Creation as Metropolis, Macmillan, 1963, p. 69). Having disposed of the God Paul preached, they proceed to canonize social science. The new gospel of sacred sociology calls the Church to abandon its dream of the heavenly Jerusalem and seek the realization of the “new mankind” in the earthly city through the use of political power. For such an enterprise, Billy Graham’s efforts are an unwelcome diversion.
Evangelism must have a higher source than the church steeple or the high-rise apartment. But can evangelism actually be God-centered? Are not the issues of evangelism to be found in the slums of metropolis and the pews of suburbia? To be sure, the problems of evangelism are to be found in the world and in the Church; but just as surely their solution is to be found in God. Only as the Gospel of God does the evangel have the power to join together the Church in the fellowship of the Gospel; only as the Gospel of God is it the majestic foolishness that offends the world with the absurd message of the Cross.
Consider, for example, the form of the Church in the world. Is the Church in “shape” for evangelism? This question cannot be limited to the familiar and important problem of involving laymen in the evangelistic work of the Church. The query is much more radical. If, as many would say, the Church exists only in mission, then it must be shaped by its mission. The structures of the world must then determine the “shape” of the Church. If, on the other hand, the Church is called into God’s presence as his people, then fellowship with God as well as service to God must determine its form. The holy nation of God’s choosing cannot be conformed to the world but must be transformed as the body of Christ. In its mission as well as in its worship, the Church is formed by God. For the “shape” of the Church we are driven to the “shape” of the Gospel.
Other issues in evangelism may also be brought to radical solution through the perception of God’s Lordship in the Gospel. The reshaping of the Church is a comparatively recent question for evangelism; much older is the problem of reshaping the world. The social gospel of liberalism has undergone urban renewal but continues to be the “good news” of economic and social reform.
How does the Gospel relate to social action? When an evangelical reports the success of evangelism-in-depth, world churchmen are quick to condemn the “individualism” and “pietism” of such an approach. The promised peace of God’s Kingdom, we are told, is far more comprehensive. It cannot be limited to a few souls snatched from the burning but includes a redeemed humanity, a new heaven and earth. Social structures, not merely individual men, must be redeemed to usher in the shalom (peace) of the Kingdom.
Evangelicals are sometimes vulnerable to the charge of “spiritualizing” the Gospel. Although the literary caricature of the professional evangelist may be cruel, it is recognizable. Evangelism has often ignored the whole man as well as the whole society. Yet the social gospel, new or old, grounds its criticism in a misconception. It misunderstands the promise of the Gospel. To be sure, the shalom of the Kingdom is no airy “pie in the sky.” It is as tangible and physical as Christ’s resurrection body, the beginning of the new creation. In fact, the Gospel of the resurrection determines the peace of Christ’s Kingdom. The prophets who proclaimed shalom as God’s gift were forced to struggle against the false prophets who promised peace without judgment. “No peace to the wicked” became a prophetic slogan (Isa. 48:22; Jer. 6:14; Ezek. 13:10). In the same way, the Gospel warns that the Lord who came is coming again and that the time of the restoration of all things is the time of judgment. The full peace of the Kingdom comes “at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thess. 1:7b, 8, ASV).
Only by taking seriously the eschatology of the Gospel can evangelism wait for Christ’s power and leave judgment to him. The call to evangelize by penetrating the power structures of society is a call to forsake the fellowship of Christ’s suffering. There is no power structure that is not already under his authority; obedience to Christ can never take the sword to bring in his Kingdom.
Again we are humbled before the Gospel of God. To suffer when our Lord has all authority, to die while he rules—this is not man’s conception of the Gospel of power and freedom. But it is God’s wisdom, and we must begin in the fear of the Lord to discern it.
Nothing less than the fear of the Lord can bear the Gospel. We dare not patronize the Gospel in church-centered evangelism nor subvert it in world-centered evangelism. Indeed, before we can consider the questions that drive us to reflect on evangelism, we face a prior claim; for to speak of the Gospel is to start with God (Acts 20:24). It will not do to add a little theology to our thinking about the Church and the world so as to gain a fresh perspective on the familiar problems of a powerless Church and an indifferent world. Theology cannot be packaged for convenience. The Gospel of God shapes evangelism in sovereign majesty. The Word of God, the presence of God, the power of God—these are the categories of theological evangelism. They declare that salvation is of the Lord.
To grasp the high sense in which the Gospel is God’s, we should mark the “angel” in evangel. Angels are fitting messengers to announce God’s good news (Luke 2:10), and when men are called to bear the heavenly message they do so as heralds of God (1 Tim. 2:7). Their proclamation is not man’s response to God’s salvation; it is God’s own Word (1 Thess. 2:4, 13).
God’s gospel Word declares the fulfillment of God’s Word of promise. What God speaks comes to pass. God says, “Let there be light!,” and there is light. God says, “Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings” (Mal. 4:2a), and in God’s own season the true Light comes into the world (John 1:9).
Because the Gospel is God’s sovereign word, it is more than an announcement; it is a summons. God’s appointed time has come; his feast is spread. The evangelist bids men to come, “for all things are now ready” (Luke 14:17). To ignore this summons is to invite the wrath of the king and to incur judgment: those who refuse God’s bidding shall not taste of his supper. The Gospel of God is to be obeyed (Rom. 10:16; 2 Thess. 1:8, 9; 1 Pet. 4:17). It bids men turn from their foolish idols to the living God (Acts 14:15). Those who reject it are judged by it (Acts 14:15; 2 Cor. 9:13; Acts 28:23–30; Rom. 2:16; 1 Cor. 4:5).
Gospel preachers entreat and persuade men in God’s name, but they always bear a trumpet. To lose the jubilee blast of proclamation is to lose the Gospel itself. Just as the silver trumpets of the priests once sounded deliverance to the oppressed on Israel’s day of atonement, so does gospel preaching ring with the declaration of “redemption and release” in Christ. The Gospel is not good advice but God’s news. Yet the trumpet of God’s Gospel becomes a prelude to the last trump in the ears of those who refuse God’s grace. When the Gospel is not a “savor of life unto life” it is a “savor of death unto death.” Man cannot trifle with the trumpet of God.
The Gospel is God’s in another sense: the gospel trumpet proclaims God’s own presence. No one has understood the Word of God’s promise until he sees that God has promised too much. Abraham saw that when he laughed at God’s promise of the birth of Isaac. The Old Testament builds an impossible tension between the deepening guilt of God’s people and the soaring salvation of God’s promise. How can the peace of a new covenant in a new heaven and a new earth be given to a covenant-breaking people?
Only God in Person can keep his Word of promise. He must come as Lord, as the royal Shepherd leading his flock through the wilderness in a second exodus. The deserts bloom, the trees of the field rejoice, the eyes of the blind see the coming Lord. Yet if he came only as Lord, his presence would be a devouring fire. He must come as Servant, too, as the Lord’s anointed, bearing the guilt of the people and making perfect the righteousness of the covenant.
To usher in the peace of God’s saving rule, there must come the Prince of Peace, who is Lord and Servant, Son of David and Son of God. The Gospel of God’s kingdom is the Gospel of God’s King.
Because the Gospel announces God’s saving presence, it declares God’s saving power. The Son of God himself holds the keys of the Kingdom. By his miracles he shows his power to deliver the captives of Satan; by his word he calls together his little flock; by his death and resurrection he completes his triumph as the Prince of salvation. The Holy Spirit sent from the throne of his glory is the One in whom he is present in his kingdom, the Church, until he comes again in power.
The Gospel, in short, declares the royal saving will of God. The Christ of the Great Commission holds all power in heaven and earth, including the power of the Holy Spirit to give eternal life to as many as were given him by the Father (John 17:2; Acts 5:31). He is a Prince and a Saviour who gives repentance to Israel and remission of sins. The Gospel both celebrates and realizes his triumph.
The Apostle Paul compared his evangelistic travels to the progress of a captive of war chained to the chariot of a triumphing captain. Thanks be unto God, he cried, who always leads us about, triumphing over us in Christ. Paul the chief of sinners was the trophy of Christ’s saving grace (2 Cor. 2:14). His Epistle to the Romans presents his evangel—the showing forth of God’s salvation in Christ, demanding the decision of faith.
How does this Gospel of God shape evangelism? From the standpoint of human initiative, it offers the death of evangelism. Humanism demands freedom at God’s expense; grasping at equality with God, it refuses the freedom of sonship. Even among Christians the misunderstanding persists. If salvation is by God’s free grace, why should I not sin as I please so that his grace will abound (Rom. 6:1, 2)? If God’s election is supreme, why cannot the reprobate claim they have obeyed his will (Rom. 9:19)? The fallacy of such questions is that they call God’s sovereignty to account before the throne of man’s sovereignty. But if the kingdom is God’s, then only one man is Lord, the God-man who brings all things into subjection to the will of the Father.
Evangelism shaped by the gospel of God prays. Biblical evangelism is praying evangelism, and no prayer is more evangelistic than the Lord’s Prayer. “Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.” That prayer anticipates the triumph of the Gospel. All things are possible for him who believes. The stone cut without hands, the Kingdom made in heaven, will destroy the idolatrous kingdoms of man and become a great mountain to fill the earth. By prayer the mountain of God’s Kingdom will be cast into the sea of the nations, and the very gates of the abyss cannot prevail against it (Matt. 21:21; 16:18). God is pleased to magnify his saving power through the cry of those whose trust is in him alone. If the Gospel is God’s, then prayer for the power of the Holy Spirit is the great secret of evangelism. True Christian prayer is always overwhelmed by God’s Lordship. Prayer is the real measure of a man’s conviction that salvation is of the Lord. Those who boast a Pauline theology without the unceasing prayer that was its life-breath have put a wax figure in the place of the new man in Christ. Living theology is praying theology; the first fruit of a biblical theology of evangelism is prayer.
When Jesus with supreme compassion saw the great harvest of the kingdom, his words to his disciples were not “Go ye as laborers into the harvest” but “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest” (Matt. 9:38).
EXILE
Yes, it is beautiful country,
The stream in the winding valley, the knowes and the birches,
And beautiful the mountain’s bare shoulder And the calm brows of the hills;
But it is not my country,
And in my heart there is a hollow place always.
And there is no way to go back.
Maybe indeed the miles, but the years never.
Winding are the roads that we choose,
And inexorable is life, driving us like cattle Farther and farther away from what we remember.
But when we shall come at last
To God, who is our Home and our Country,
There will be no more road stretching before us
And no more need to go back.
EVANGELINE PATERSON
Evangelism shaped by the Gospel of God dares. Confronted by the threats of those who had crucified Christ, the apostles prayed for boldness; their prayer echoes through the New Testament. In the boldness of the Holy Spirit, Simon Peter, who had once cringed before a serving maid, stood before the Sanhedrin to declare that he had to obey God rather than man. Significantly, his message was that the crucified Jesus had been exalted by God’s right hand to be Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36; 5:31). His daring showed more than an understanding of the new situation brought about by the Gospel; it revealed the very power of Christ’s glory operating in him by the Spirit. Paul speaks of the power of the Gospel that is mighty to the casting down of the highest imaginations of human pride (2 Cor. 10:4, 5). An evangelist who had been working among the prostitutes surrounding an American army camp in Korea was challenged by a disturbing thought: Why not take the Gospel to the syndicate operating the houses of prostitution? His hand trembled as he knocked on the door of the vice headquarters, but his bold witness bore fruit. One of the exploiters was humbled by the Gospel and turned to Christ.
Evangelism shaped by the Gospel of God preaches. Since the Gospel is God’s, his Word is the two-edged sword that accomplishes its victory. Apart from the immediate working of God’s power, preaching is foolishness. Its authority is offensive to modern man; its simplicity is scorned. We are told not only that the day of mass evangelism is past (an assertion often made before Billy Graham’s ministry) but also that the day of verbal communication is past. Television has brought back the language of pictures, and preaching is an anachronism. But the wisdom of God is mightier than that of man. Until faith becomes sight, man is restored to the image of God by hearing God’s voice. The Gospel of God carries the blessing Christ promised to Thomas, the blessing on those who do not see, yet believe. God continues to call and send preachers; evangelism will always require evangelists—not only the daily witness of every believer but the convicting proclamation of men of God, mighty in the Scriptures and able to do the work of an evangelist.
Evangelism shaped by the Gospel of God cares. God’s Gospel is the Father’s word of mercy. Because it is God’s, it springs from his heart of love. The parable of the Prodigal Son really presents the welcoming Father and requires the true son of the Father to share his welcome of grace. The returning prodigal deserves nothing, but the father in love gives him everything: the garments of sonship, the feast of joy. The elder brother who refuses to enter the feast is shut out from the joy of his father’s house, from the joy of heaven over one sinner who repents. The true Elder Brother knows so well the love of the Father and his joy in recovering the son who was lost and dead, that he not only sits down to feast with penitent sinners but even goes to the far country to seek and to save that which was lost and to bring life to that which was dead. The zeal of evangelism lit by the Gospel of God has the individualism of God’s personal love. The shepherd rejoices to find one lost sheep from a flock of a hundred, the woman to find one lost coin out of ten, the Father to find one lost son from a family of two.
Because evangelism cares, it cannot pass by human misery. Until Christ comes to repay what is spent in his name, the ministry of the Gospel must include the ministry of mercy. The cup of cold water for the thirsty, oil and wine for the wounded, bread for the hungry, clothing for the naked, comfort for the prisoner—such ministries are performed not only in Christ’s name but to Christ himself. They show the genuineness of the Gospel, and they anticipate the final joy of the gospel promise that the conquest of sin will bring victory over suffering and death. Just as Christians who pray “forgive us our debts” are Christians who confess, “we forgive our debtors,” so too Christians who pray “give us this day our daily bread” are those who give their daily bread to those in need. To do men good is not bait for the gospel invitation—soup and a bed for those who respond in a rescue mission; neither is it an awkward auxiliary to the principal work of evangelism, like a thriving hospital that overshadows the missionary center from which it sprang.
Rather, the ministry of mercy is a sign of the Kingdom. The love that it shows is that peculiar love of compassion evoked by the love of God’s grace in Christ. Only such love fulfills God’s law. In it God’s will is done on earth as Christ did it on earth. Further, the relief of suffering points to the gospel promise of a new heaven and earth from which the curse has been removed. The heavenly city sought by the pilgrim church is coming; whenever human need is met in Christ’s name, the approach of the time of the restoration of all things is heralded.
Finally, evangelism as it is shaped by the Gospel of God suffers. Gospel heralds cannot avoid suffering, not only because they provoke the hostility of the powers of darkness but also because they share the griefs of the oppressed. Paul warns that the Kingdom can be entered only through many tribulations (Acts 14:22). He saw the chains of his imprisonment as bonds of the Gospel (Philemon 13) and spoke of the afflictions of the Gospel (2 Tim. 1:8) that he endured as he made up what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the Church.
The riches of the Gospel of grace remain the untapped resource of contemporary evangelism. We have assumed that we know the Gospel and have sought new forms for the Church and new relations with the world. The truth is we know the world all too well and have formed and reformed, organized and reorganized the Church until we have built a high Gothic cathedral of interlacing committees buttressed with boards and vaulted with task groups. What we do not know is the Gospel that is the power of God to salvation. Even our prayers for the Holy Spirit lack the boldness that flows from pleading God’s own promises in the wisdom of the Gospel. New avenues of communication with the world must be opened, new dynamics of fellowship in the Gospel must be discovered; but we will not fail in this if we learn what it means to know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings.
