Evangelical Principles and Practices

Second of Two Parts

In the first article, we saw that God—the sovereign Redeemer is the evangelical root principle, and that the first main emphasis is on God’s way of salvation for sinners: Christ the only Saviour, the centrality of the Atonement, justification by faith, regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and the witness of the Spirit to a believer’s regeneration and possession of eternal life.

The second main emphasis is the necessity of good works. Evangelicals expect to see a real difference in people’s lives consequent upon faith in Christ. They expect to see, however immaturely at first, the fruits of repentance, a hatred of sin, a love for God’s commandments, an appreciation of the means of grace, and a special love for fellow believers, and also the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control. Although they believe with James that “all of us often go wrong,” they believe equally with James that “faith without works is dead.”

The more mature and earnest evangelicals seek to be guided by the high principles for Christian conduct found chiefly in the Epistles. They will ask many questions about those matters we all face that are neither right nor wrong in themselves: Can our participation be to the glory of God? Can we ask for God’s blessing in this thing? Is it worldly? Is our participation likely to be a stumbling block to weak Christians or to those outside? Is it a hindrance to us ourselves? Does it impair tenderness of conscience, obscure our sense of God, or take away a relish for spiritual things? Can we, as God’s stewards, spend money and time in that way? The giving of a minimum of a tenth of one’s income to Christian and charitable causes has, I think, long been practiced among and encouraged by the great majority of the leaders in evangelical Christianity and among great numbers also of the rank and file.

The fruit of the Gospel in social life is very strikingly illustrated in the transformation that came over life in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Virtually every social benefit we now enjoy we owe, directly or indirectly, to the Gospel of justification by grace through faith, and it was those who took their stand on the truths outlined in these two articles who were very largely responsible for social reform.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, workers were often no better off than slaves. Even little children were made to work long hours on farms and in factories and were sent up chimneys to sweep them. Sport often involved the torture of animals and birds. And it was the gin age. In 1688, when the population of England was five million, the consumption of gin was 12.5 million barrels. From 1684 to 1750 the amount of spirits distilled in England rose from a little over half a million gallons to 11 million. In 1750, out of 2,000 houses in St. Giles, Holborn, 506 were gin houses. Between 1730 and 1749, three out of four children died before their fifth birthday. The prison system was barbarous and nauseating, and there was no public conscience to support reform. Acts of Parliament were of little use, because they had little public support.

But the nation-wide preaching of justification by faith, atonement by the blood of Christ, regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and the witness of the Spirit in the heart of the believer transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of persons and consequently of the country. The same is true of the nineteenth century. Elizabeth Fry and John Howard were the leading prison reformers, Lord Shaftesbury the great factory reformer. Numerous children’s homes were founded by such people as Dr. Barnado and George Muller, and non-alcoholic Sailors’ Homes by Agnes Weston. The Clapham Sect, which met under the evangelical teaching and ministry of the Rev. John Venn in Clapham, included William Wilber-force, the liberator of the slaves; Henry Thornton, banker, financier, and reformer, greatly respected in the House of Commons; Charles Grant, chairman of the East India Company; James Stephen, leading lawyer; Zachary Macaulay, governor of Sierra Leone; and Lord Teignmouth, governor general of India. Evangelicals founded the YMCA, the Salvation Army, and the Church of England Temperance Society, from which has come our probation-officer system. James Hardie, converted at one of evangelist D. L. Moody’s campaigns in Edinburgh, went to work among the working people of Scotland with evangelical fervor and founded the British Labour Party.

In the first half of the twentieth century, evangelical Christianity waned. Many of the reforming institutions, once so robustly evangelical, have now departed from the emphases of their founders; their origin is hardly recognizable. The state has rightly taken over much of the social responsibility. Attention has turned rather to the far greater needs of other countries, and the churches as a whole have become more involved.

Evangelicals are not prepared to speak of the “social gospel,” as there is only one Gospel. Social reform is not its essence but one of its fruits.

The third main emphasis of evangelicalism is the priesthood of the whole Church, the Body of Christ. In the New Testament, the word for priest (hiereus) is used in three senses only. It is used of Old Testament priests who offered sacrifices on altars in anticipation of Christ; of Christ himself; and, in the plural only, of all Christians. There is no scriptural basis for any existence within the Church of priests as a caste or priesthood as a special gift of the Spirit. All Christians have the privilege of bringing people to God in intercession and God to people in the Gospel. Any Christian may be God’s agent through whom the door of the kingdom of heaven is opened to unbelievers by the Gospel and may assure those who believe it of the remission of their sins.

The sacrifices offered to God by the Church, the whole body of believers, are spiritual offerings such as worship, praise, prayer, thanksgiving, kindly acts, generosity, and their bodies to be used for his glory. Such sacrifices have no atoning value whatever.

This is the only kind of Eucharistic sacrifice the evangelical can find in Scripture. Such spiritual sacrifices, moreover, may be offered at any time, quite apart from the Eucharist. The very phrase “Eucharistic sacrifice” is foreign to evangelical thinking. It was, I think, misleading when the phrase was used once by the Oxford Conference of Evangelical Clergy as the main title of the conference. In the final summary of the conference, the view expressed above was advocated. To the evangelical, the essential movement of the Holy Communion is not from the Church to God, as if the Church were making an offering to him, but from God to his Church.

In the Holy Communion God gives six things to the members of Christ’s body. God gives a visible sign of the Gospel (“You proclaim the death of the Lord,” says Paul). God gives a reminder of the Lord and his death (“Do this in remembrance of me”). God gives food for the soul, a participation in the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice. God gives a sign of the unity of all believers in Christ (one bread, one body). God gives a reminder of the Lord’s return (it is only “till he come”). God gives a means of grace by which he works in those who in this way proclaim Christ, recalling him to memory and feeding on him in their hearts. In the act of participation, the faithful are bearing witness to these gifts of God; and it is most appropriate, of course, that in response they should offer to God thanksgiving and the consecration of themselves.

As the whole Church is a priesthood, evangelicals are normally great believers in the liberty of the Spirit in extempore prayer, corporate as well as private. Most of them believe that though set prayers can be a great reality, they are not enough. Six times in the Acts of the Apostles, groups of Christians are described as praying together in unforeseen situations, implying a free, extempore praise and intercession. These things are written for our example and learning. Almost everywhere that evangelical Christianity has gone, this practice has been prominent, rather than the practice of liturgical intercessions and set daily services. Its influence and power are immeasurable.

If then priesthood is the privilege of all believers, what about the ministry? Evangelicals believe it is ordained by Christ, through his calling and the gifts of the Spirit, for the building up of the Body of Christ. It consists of pastors, shepherding the flock of God, providing pasture and protection; teachers, instructing the disciples; and overseers, exercising discipline and authority, refuting error, and protecting the flock from wolves, which sometimes appear even among the flock and in sheep’s clothing. To the evangelical, there is no theological reason why recognized laymen should not fully administer Holy Communion and pronounce absolution, as long as there is discipline and everything is done decently and in order, with no schismatic and rival tables of the Lord. Evangelicals in all the main Protestant denominations have been celebrating Holy Communion with one another at interdenominational activities ever since the Reformation.

Evangelicals all agree that the Church is the universal mystical body of all Christ’s believing and redeemed people, militant here on earth and triumphant in glory. They disagree as to Christ’s intention for the unity of his Church on earth. Some believe it should be organic and visible; others think the unity to be expected, in the circumstances of man’s imperfection and inclination toward corruption and apostasy, can be only a spiritual one, as at present. Probably all evangelicals would agree that a greater degree of true unity among the churches depends upon a movement of the Spirit of God resulting in a greater acceptance of the cardinal principles and practices summarized in this paper.

The last main emphasis of evangelical Christianity is the authority of Scripture through the Holy Spirit in the Church. It is by his Word and his Spirit working together that God brought the Church into existence, has perpetuated it ever since, and guarantees its completion. In the earliest days of the Church, this was accomplished chiefly through Spirit-led apostles of Christ and their close associates, who preached the Gospel, taught the faith, and composed written records. This Word of God is not dependent on, nor subordinate to, the sanction of the Church. The Church is dependent on it and under obligation to abide by it because it is God-given. The basis of selection by which the Church set its seal of recognition on the authoritative written records seems to have been the authority of the writers (apostles and their immediate associates); opinion in the Church (a general recognition, with no very serious disagreement); and internal evidence, the seal of the Holy Spirit through the actual content of the writings.

The evangelical believes that it is a mark of apostasy (i.e., abandonment of a faith or of principles once professed) to subtract from or add to the Word of God as contained in this Canon of Scripture. Once subtraction or addition is allowed, we are bound to fall into error. Christ had to face this apostasy in the Sadducees, who subtracted, for example, in denying the Resurrection; and in the Pharisees, who made the Word of God void by adding their tradition. In the new liberal theology of the last century or more, the evangelical sees a modern expression of the fatal error of the Sadducees; and in the Roman Catholic tradition, he sees a continuing and apparently irremediable expression of the error of the Pharisees. God is so great that there is earnest devotion to Christ to be found among both, for which the evangelical thanks God. But Christ’s attitude toward the Sadducees and Pharisees was one of such severe censure that most evangelicals cannot compromise with either without a sense of disloyalty to the Master.

Here lies the tension whenever evangelicals mix with others, many of whom they are bound to regard as apostate. They take their stand with Bishop Jewel when he said, “Show me something in the Bible I don’t teach and I will start teaching it; and something I do teach, which is not in the Bible, and I will cease”; and with Bishop Ryle when he said: “If the thing is not in the Bible, deducible from the Bible or in manifest harmony with the Bible, we should have none of it.”

The study of Scripture and of the lessons learned by people of God through the ages of church history is of immense value in the eyes of evangelicals, especially for the light it throws on the meaning and interpretation of the Bible. The principles that should govern interpretation are all summarized by one evangelical theologian, Alan M. Stibbs (vice-principal of Oak Hill College, London), in thirty-two points, of which I have selected eight as examples:

1. Discover the form of expression, e.g., whether literal or figurative, actual or metaphorical.

2. Beware equally of a limited literalism and of a fanciful or an evasive spiritualization.

3. Recognize the progress and unity of the Scriptural revelation as a whole, and the place and need of every part.

4. Use the Old Testament for the understanding of the New Testament and interpret the Old Testament in relation and subordination to the New Testament.

5. Compare Scripture with Scripture; and let Scripture check and confirm one’s interpretation of Scripture.

6. Aim to discover and to keep in harmony with the general consent or tenor of Holy Scripture.

7. Recognize that the Truth is many-sided.

8. Recognize the inevitable paradoxes of the truth about things infinite; and be prepared to accept both extremes [Understanding God’s Word].

While all evangelicals seek to submit themselves to the authority of Scripture and recognize the need of the Holy Spirit in interpretation, most would go further and say that Scripture, as originally given, is divinely inspired. This means, not that the writers received God’s message mechanically, nor that they could avoid the normal hard work involved, nor that they adopted a perfect literary style, nor that copyists, editors, and translators were preserved from error, but that God used holy men to express his own authorship. It is usually some time after coming to faith in Christ that the reader of the Bible recognizes this unique inspiration. There is strong internal evidence for it, especially the fact that Christ fully accepted the Old Testament and promised that his Spirit would guide the apostles into all truth, thereby foreshadowing the New Testament.

The inquiring reader of the Bible notes the frequent repetition of the phrase “God spoke” or its equivalent (700 times in the Pentateuch, 400 in the other 12 Old Testament historical books, 150 times in Isaiah). He finds that Paul and Peter have a doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture. Paul writes: “All scripture is inspired by God … that the man of God may be complete.…” Peter says: “… no prophecy of scripture … ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” There is also an astounding unity to be noted in the Bible, though it consists of seventy books (Psalms is five books in the Hebrew Bible) written over 1,600 years by about forty writers. The element of foretelling future events found in much Scripture is, moreover, plainly supernatural.

The believer also learns by experience that the Bible, welcomed in the heart, brings faith, peace, and triumph in his life; and neglected, means failure and sin. He finds promises that, trusted in, beget assurance; commands that, obeyed, produce the beauty of holiness; warnings that, heeded, save him from folly and sin; principles that, applied, give wisdom how to act; passages of praise and prayer that, appropriated, are a source of needed inspiration. The Bible becomes a means of vital communion with God, far more than a source of information.

This emphasis on the Bible—its authority, inspiration, and power in the life of the Christian—finds its expression in the Bible colleges and, at church level, in expository preaching, Bible schools and study groups, and daily Bible reading. Evangelical preaching tends to start with the Bible and end with application to the contemporary scene. The unfolding of the context, meaning, and application of Scripture takes time, so sermons tend to be longer than the average in the churches as a whole. An increasing number of evangelical preachers are taking their hearers right through a whole book of the Bible, expounding every clause in a series of sermons or studies. Many churches have a week-night Bible class in which there is further systematic exposition. By long tradition, daily systematic Bible reading is regarded by evangelicals as a vital basic practice for any Christian who wants to grow in grace.

Through the years evangelicals have contributed much to the outreach of the Church of Jesus Christ both in proclamation of the Gospel and in works of compassion that flow from a regenerating experience. The present strength of the movement assures us that evangelical principles and practices continue with unabated force, and we can hope that their influence will increase as the years go by.

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