My denomination, the Anglican church, is making much of the nineties as a “decade of evangelism.” We are not alone. But few congregations or denominations seem to know exactly what it all means. The church appears to lack an understanding of evangelism that is sufficiently theological, and a theology of evangelism that is sufficiently practical.

I believe the opening verses of John’s great evangelistic gospel, written “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31), capture the holistic vision we need. There in the prologue’s 18 verses, which commentator R. H. Lightfoot called “the key to the understanding of this gospel,” we see the content and context of Christian evangelism. There the theology and practice of evangelism, the roles of God and humanity, the relation between God’s story and my faith story all find their place.

God The Great Evangelist

The vision for evangelism found in John’s prologue actually comes in four parts. Verses 1–5 of chapter 1 tell us, first, that evangelism begins with the story of God:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

A theology of evangelism begins here: “In the beginning” of the Christian message and story. It originates, in other words, with God. Evangelism does not start when I open my mouth; it began when God “said” and the world came to be. It is rooted in the biblical story of God’s eternal nature and divine love. “Evangelism is a cross in the heart of God,” declared Leighton Ford. Discussing evangelism without referring to the nature of God and his work in Christ is to make God play second fiddle to our efforts.

Furthermore, these opening verses give a clue to three essential features of the gospel story that begins in God. First, it is a story of divine creativity (vv. 1–3). This God is the God whose creative Word gives life, and who is himself a life-creating Word. As the church takes this Word and owns it in faith and shares it in evangelism, the story of God’s creative and recreative work will continue.

Second, it is the story of divine life (v. 4). John presents evangelism as both the declaration and demonstration of the God witnessed to in Genesis and seen in Jesus. This God is the source and sustainer of “abundant life” (10:10). In evangelism, the church shares this dynamic, creative life with the world.

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Third, it is a story of divine light (v. 5). “Let there be light” is not only an act in the drama of creation; it is also the story of recreation, of bringing spiritual light into the darkness of human hearts. The God who spoke into being the light of the physical world now speaks (as we see in the healing of the blind man in John 9) a word that still brings light—both literal and spiritual. Evangelism is rooted in the good news of the unquenchable light of God, “which shines in the darkness,” and the sober reality that some people love “darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil” (3:19). A church that owns this story will bring to the light darkness in all its forms, and it daily will seek to “live in the light” in its service, morality, and relationships.

The church’s problems and confusions regarding evangelism arise all too often because we have forgotten the theological fact and practical force of belief in “God the Evangelist.” This awareness can counter popular representations of evangelism as simply something we humans do. Evangelism with power begins in knowledge of and obedience to God himself. We begin with the humble acknowledgment that, in one sense at least, God does not need us.

The Human Obligation

Verses 6–8 build on the first section to speak of evangelism as something we nevertheless share in. Evangelism, then, involves not only the story of God, but our obligation and participation in communicating that story.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.

Scholars have often pointed to the sudden and significant shift that occurs between the first and second sections of John’s prologue, between a dramatic, cosmic, eternal perspective (vv. 1–5) and the very human narrative that begins “There was a man …” (vv. 6–8).

People clearly participate in the work of “God the Evangelist.” In John the Baptist we see all the faithful who, to use the gospel writer’s language, “bear witness.” God moves in mysterious ways—including through men and women like us.

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To “bear witness” is one of John’s themes. The Christian witness stakes everything on the gospel. Indeed, we trace our English word martyr to the original Greek word for bearing witness. As one scholar put it, “Unless you commit yourself, unless you stake everything on the truth of what you say, you cannot be a witness.” John the Baptist’s life vividly unites faithfulness to God’s call to new life with preparedness to stake everything in “martyrdom” for its truth.

We are thereby cautioned against representing evangelism as me telling my story. However interesting that story may be, such an approach does not “bear witness” to God’s story. This especially needs emphasizing as we seek to communicate the truth of the Christian story in a pluralist society, where truth is often seen as wholly subjective.

We can also find comfort by the vision of evangelism presented in this second section: God did not need, but nevertheless wills, human cooperation in embodying his word and light and life to the world. For God to share his work with us is a gracious risk and imponderable gift on his part.

The Heart Of Our Message

John moves in verses 9–13 to summarize the gospel we preach. Evangelism, we learn, is telling the story of Jesus.

The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

New Testament evangelism, as we see here, has to do with the truth to which Jesus—in person and in action—bears witness. Evangelism, to be Christian, concentrates on Jesus. His deeds—not my needs—make up the focus of the good news we share.

John’s understanding of this focus on Jesus has to do with three central features of Christ’s life and work:

First, John emphasizes Jesus’ incarnation (vv. 9–10): “He was in the world.…” God comes to offer his word of light and life to humanity in his Son, Jesus. “We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father,” John declares, and in these words he points to the paradoxical mystery at the heart of the Incarnation: the inclusive offer of God’s life and light to all through Christ, and the exclusive claim that this offer of life is embodied in Jesus.

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Second, John emphasizes Jesus’ crucifixion, grimly foreshadowed in the prologue when John says “the world knew him not.… [H]is own people received him not” (vv. 10–11). The shadow of the cross hangs over the whole of John’s gospel, as it must ours. It is good news at a price—the price of Christ’s rejection and crucifixion.

For John, it is impossible to talk about Jesus without speaking about humanity’s response to him. The light of Christ, the light of the world, shines for some to live by. Others will “judge” themselves by it when they reject it. It is therefore impossible to tell the story of Jesus without including the story of the Cross. Biblically shaped evangelism cannot ignore the radical claims made for Christ’s Cross as the place of human decision and judgment, and as the place of God’s work of peace and reconciliation.

Third, John emphasizes Jesus’ role in the New Birth and adoption of many (vv. 12–13). The evangelist talks of God’s gift of “power to become children of God.” Though some reject God’s life through the life and death of Jesus, some accept it and become adopted members of God’s family, God’s spiritual “children.” This is God’s will for all, but not all “receive him.” John does not shrink from the awesome reality of human freedom in relation to the gospel, and the incredible miracle of new birth from God.

This emphasis on Christ carries two important implications for evangelism. First, it reminds us there is a central story that all Christians tell: the story of the life, death, and resurrection power of Jesus Christ. Debates about evangelism are frequently debates about who we are as Christians. Articulating our faith to the world forces us to define what we believe is essential to the gospel and to our identity as a church. John’s vision includes a creedal clarity that we forget at our peril. Unless we are clear about the story we tell, how can we expect to be heard clearly in the postmodern world?

Second, lest talk of evangelism lack vigor or relevance to a suffering, hate-ridden world, the good news in our story, as John shows, is the possibility of life being begun again—born anew—according to the Creator’s pattern.

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And to lives shattered by sin, corruption, alienation, and oppression, this is only part of the good news. Preaching the power of Christ’s Cross also involves confrontation with all corrupt systems of hate, self-love, and violence. The light that “shines in the darkness” judges both the church and the world.

Glimpses Of Grace And Truth

In verses 14–18, John’s evangelistic vision is finally consummated in a message of “grace and truth.”

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. (John bore witness to him, and cried, “This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’ ”) And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.

What is the goal or purpose of evangelism? Is it counting heads? Changing systems? No; it is because Jesus is, for John, “full of grace and truth” (v. 14) that his gifts to those who receive him in faith are likewise “grace and truth” (v. 17). This, then, is the goal of evangelism. In grace we see the lavish love of a forgiving God directed to all who receive Jesus as the living Son of God and dying Savior of the world. In grace we see the Godward, spiritual goal of evangelism, the story of humanity living under the gracious hand of God in conformity to God’s will, praying and working that God’s kingdom would indeed come, “on earth as it is in heaven.”

In truth we see the human ward, practical end of evangelism as the reality found in Christ is allowed to shape the church’s engagement with the world. That truth is a judging, testing, correcting, challenging reality.

More Than “Sharing”

John has given us four parts of a vision for a holistic, biblical understanding of evangelism. Here evangelism does not begin in human action but in God, in his being and creative initiative. It is not done apart from human agency—at least not usually—but it involves our hands and feet and lips. It isn’t ultimately about sharing feelings, personal stories, or even well-devised programs (however worthy these may all be). It is instead telling the story of Jesus in word and deed with all the inclusiveness associated with God’s love, and all the exclusiveness demanded by the particularity of Christ’s life and death.

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Evangelism is not, finally, about a forced choice between converting souls or changing social systems, but it is about the grace that saves sinners, and the truth that transforms societies. This is the lens John’s gospel invites us to look through to see more clearly, in the midst of our doubts and debates, the heart and foundation of Christian evangelism.

Eugene H. Peterson is pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church, Bel Air, Maryland, and author of A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (InterVarsity) and Answering God (Harper & Row), both of which are about the Psalms.

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