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By Marlon De Blasio
God’s self-disclosure impacts humankind unlike any other phenomenon. Everyone experiences it, but reacts differently. Some have reacted by positing that God is in everything; some believe that God is a useful but imaginary being; some have had the audacity to say that humanity created God. There are other perspectives, but what underscores all is a necessitated human reaction of its innate compulsion of God.
Moreover, the Gospel presents a plausibility and persuasibility insomuch that a recipient of its message will surely experience conviction. By now, unbelievers reading this are already thinking of how to disagree in order to escape the path towards accountability to God. That itself is also a reaction to the inescapable phenomenon of God.
“At any given moment,” writes distinguished psychologist Paul C. Vitz, “or at least at many times, every person can choose to move toward, away from, or against God.”[1] Thus believers should exercise thoughtful evangelism, especially in today’s culture wherein people are easily offended. By personal experience and good reason, I believe that the Gospel’s message of grace remains the only hope for humankind.
When God said, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3), it wasn’t a revelation to emphasize that He exists. No, it was commanded so that our reactions towards Him would remain singly on the path to redemption, fulfillment, and truth. A preference for other gods (i. e., objects perceived as of ultimate value as the love of money, hedonism, self-aggrandizement, etc.) can never be justified because God is foundational to our existence and seeking replacements will be futile attempts to achieve ultimate fulfillment.
A pioneer of American Atheist was William J. Murray, the son of the founder, Madalyn Murray O’Hair. In My Life Without God, he highlighted his mother’s determined belligerence against God. She was fond of saying, “I love a good fight … I guess fighting God and God’s spokesmen is sort of the ultimate, isn’t it?”[2] In the book, he repeatedly notes how she sought to replace God with her selfish behaviors. She made it her mission to despise God. His own reaction to God changed when in his early 30s he discovered Christ. He has never looked back and continues to serve in Christian ministry. As Vitz analyzed, “every person can choose to move toward, away from, or against God.” Perhaps the reactions towards God from the founder of American Atheist were extremely radical and atypical. Nevertheless today the Gospel’s message and its implied accountability to God continue to provoke antagonism towards Christian faith, albeit not in the extremes of Madalyn.
God’s invitation remains open: “Come now, let us reason together … though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Is. 1:18). Genuine evangelism has always been about sharing the Good News that God’s grace is for real and explaining how people can enter into a living relationship with their maker.
The regenerated position of being a child of God is a distinct experience that uniquely places believers in a profoundly personal relationship with Him. In his epoch-making theological treatise, Knowing God, J. I. Packer put it this way:
“What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination, and lays hold of our allegiance, and this the Christian has, in a way that no other man has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God?” [3]
Once the grace of God has been tasted and peace is established with the Almighty all else becomes incomparable. God’s grace captures a believer unlike anything else and so evangelism should become the communication of desiring grace for others as they react to God.
Another common reaction to the Gospel is to say to a Christian that the decision to accept God’s grace may be good for you, but not for me. It’s been 2,000 years of attempts to relativize Gospel claims, but God’s grace has proven to be efficaciously timeless. Pilate tried to escape his own personal conviction by “washing his hands before the crowd” and “saying, see to it yourselves” (Matt. 27:24). He also tried to relativize Christ, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called the Christ” (Matt. 27:22)? That question has produced more books than any other subject.
In contemporary culture, I believe the challenge to evangelism is the negative stereotyping of the Christian faith. Stereotypically, people perceive Christianity as having to attend weekly church meetings, reciting prayers, having a narrow worldview, and restricting one’s lifestyle to do’s and don’ts. We must endeavor to show that the Gospel is freedom, fulfillment, and “unspeakable joy.” “And you will know the truth,” Jesus promises, “and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). “Therefore,” Paul writes, “since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). Did Jesus and Paul purposely fabricate claims to try and make people feel good? Did they have huge egos that required authority over others? Were they themselves deceived? If so, by whom or what? No, they were encouraging people towards “the way, the truth, and the life.”
Gospel promises persist in fulfilling themselves indiscriminately within contemporary believers. We should be encouraged to continue to communicate them, even in a culture steeped in stereotypical caricatures of Christianity and wherein sophisticated escape mechanisms are commonplace. The Gospel is powerful and its grace will surely materialize in those who wholeheartedly call upon the Lord Jesus. It’s a sure thing.
I am so grateful for the brave Christians who years ago shared the Gospel with me on a hot summer’s evening in downtown Toronto, and I often wish I had accepted God’s grace even earlier. Their evangelistic efforts have borne great fruit in my life, and with the Spirit’s help I will continue to encourage thoughtful and intelligent evangelism. “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:23).