True Evangelism
Trinitarian
theologian Thomas F. Torrance delineated as of utmost importance the difference
between true evangelical preaching and unevangelical preaching.
There is, then, an evangelical way to preach
the Gospel and an unevangelical way to preach it. The Gospel is preached in and
unevangelical way, as happens so often in modern evangelism, when the preacher
announces: this is what Jesus Christ has done for you, but you will not be
saved unless you make your own personal decision for Christ as your Savior. Or:
Jesus Christ loved you and gave His life for you on the Cross, but you will be
saved only if you give your heart to Him. In that event what is actually coming
across to people is not a Gospel of unconditional grace but some other gospel
of conditional grace which belies the essential nature and content of the
Gospel as it is in Jesus. … To preach the Gospel in that conditional or
legalist way has the effect of telling poor sinners that in the last resort the
responsibility for their salvation is taken off the shoulders of the Lamb of
God and placed upon them – but in that case they feel that they will never be
saved. They know perfectly well in their own hearts that if the chain that
binds them to God in Jesus Christ has even one of its links their own feeble
act of decision, then the whole chain is as weak as that, it’s weakest link.77
Forcing
the “one good work” of faith back upon hearers for salvation is our favorite
“Gentile legalism” today. Torrance compares it precisely with the error Paul
struggled against in the Galatian church. It is a subtle yet crucial diversion
from the true Gospel. Torrance explains:
How, then, is the Gospel to be preached in a
genuinely evangelical way? Surely in such a way that full and central place is
given to the vicarious humanity of Jesus as the all-sufficient human response
to the saving love of God which He has freely and unconditionally provided for
us. We preach and teach the Gospel evangelically, then, in such a way as this:
God loves you so utterly and completely that He has given Himself for you in
Jesus Christ His beloved Son, and has thereby pledged His very Being as God for
your salvation. In Jesus Christ God has actualized His unconditional love for
you in your human nature in such a once for all way that He cannot go back upon
it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying Himself.
Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly unworthy
of Him, and has thereby already made you His own before and apart from you ever
believing in Him. He has bound you to Himself by His love in a way that He will
never let you go, for even if you refuse Him and damn yourself in hell His love
will never cease. Therefore, repent and believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord
and Savior. From beginning to end what Jesus Christ has done for you He has
done not only as God but as man. He has acted in your place in the whole range
of your human life and activity, including your personal decisions, and your
responses to God’s love, and even your acts of faith. He has believed for you,
fulfills your human response to God, even made your personal decision for you,
so that He acknowledges you before God as one who has already responded to God
in Him, who has already believed in God through Him, and whose personal decision
is already implicated in Christ’s self-offering to the Father, in all of which
He has been fully and completely accepted by the Father, so that in Jesus
Christ you are already accepted by Him. Therefore, renounce yourself … and
follow Jesus as your Lord and Savior.78
What About ‘My Faith?’
But
this is too easy! His faith is enough to save me? Does this undercut our own
personal faith response to the message? By
no means! His faith is the very thing that empowers my faith. This reality
of my inclusion in the life of God haunts me, chases me down and compels me to
make a choice. Not a choice of whether I will die and be raised – for that has
already happened in Christ! It compels me to decide whether I will thankfully,
joyously embrace the divine life He has given me and recognize that I have been
crucified with Christ.
Whatever
our faith response may be, it is merely an expression of and confidence in the
faithfulness of Jesus Christ. His repentance on behalf of man is the only thing
that empowers true repentance within man. Placing salvation fully in His court
means that self is taken out of the equation – and that is the only place where
true trust happens. His conclusion about you is the substance and source of
salvation. My ecstatic “Yes!” response to hearing the truth of this divine
union finds its validity only in the union itself.
To
preach “human response” invalidates the Gospel. Our faith is personalized only
insofar as we see His already completed work. “My faith” must never be the
condition of salvation. My faith can only be full, true and effective so long
as it is a response to the prior
saving work of Christ and His faith.
What if some were unfaithful? Will their
unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? (Rom. 3:3).
Begin
to see how insignificant is human failure in comparison to God’s grand success.
In fact, the new birth is merely the revealing of an innocence, from God’s
perspective, attributed to mankind from the foundation of the world.
How
many a soul has been fearful of Matthew 10:33, “But whoever denies Me before
others, I will deny before My Father in Heaven.” The word “deny” is arnēsētai, which actually means to
“contradict.”79 Francois du Toit explains. If you contradict Him as
being your true origin, identity and innocence - He will contradict you!
Because He is fully convinced of your innocence.
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