Tag: hell

What do you associate with the phrase "man-centred evangelism"?  What would self-centred evangelism look like?

I have a tract in front of me. A fairly innocuous cover - it could be about anything.

Open it up and straight away you're confronted with death and judgement. When we die we will open our eyes either in a state of supreme happiness or unbelievable anguish. There is no annihilation, no re-incarnation, no escape.

The next page tells us How to be sure of heaven. There follow nine numbered points. These include (among other things) 'repenting', 'coming' to Jesus, 'trusting in' Jesus, 'looking to' Jesus, 'receiving' Jesus, 'confessing ' Jesus, and 'reading your Bible and praying every day'. These are all separately listed under the heading 'How to be sure of heaven.'  The work of Jesus is mentioned in the midst of a couple of these points - His death on "Calvary" is instrumental in your forgiveness and something you must realise and trust in.

It concludes with a sinners' prayer.

Now... let me say I love first contact evangelism, I love tracts.  I use them often. I've just been out door-knocking our parish and found it a very fruitful time. I don't fault anyone for a sense of gospel urgency and a desire to reach out.  So let's not get hung up on the particular example, but let's talk about the theology behind it.

The theology fueling this is not confined to tracts. Some folks seem to reverse engineer their gospel from the throne of judgement.  And they bring it all back to here and now and me.  The logic goes like this:

In the future there will be a judgement.

Today you can prepare for that 'great assize' by making some changes.

By the way, in the past Jesus did some things that open up the possibility for your salvation today.

But anyway, back to today.  Back to you.  Here are the nine things you need to do...

There are numerous problems here, but let me name some of them...

The entire presentation is not an announcement of good news. It is an ultimatum.

It's not about Christ and what He has done, it's about you and what you must do.

Your problem, in these presentations, is not really Christlessness.  It's the future flames which you want to avoid if you know what's good for you.

God's solution - salvation - is not knowing God through Jesus (John 17:3), it's escaping hell. Meaning...

There is no obvious connection between believing in Jesus and being saved (apart from Jesus' atonement being instrumental somehow).  Therefore...

Trusting Jesus becomes about trusting a mechanism of atonement, not a Mediator who atones.  Furthermore...

Faith in Jesus is blatantly a means to another end: escaping hell.  Which means...

No love for Christ is being encouraged, only love for self.  Thus...

True faith is not being elicited here.  You can tell this because...

Christ in His word is not creating faith (He and His work are barely mentioned), the evangelist is commanding faith.  But...

Faith is not a response to commands, it's a response to promises.  Similarly...

Faith is not a contribution we make to our salvation (along with 8 other steps we need to take), it is the gift of God that comes as Christ, in His gospel, takes hold of us.

That's what evangelism is then - placarding Christ.  And yes, talk about judgement - but talk about the condemnation that is our Christlessness, now and eternally (John 3:18). Talk about salvation, but talk about Christ as our salvation.  And talk about repentance and faith, but talk about it in the context of Christ offered to you.  Don't make it your offering to Him.

If we fail to be thoroughly Christ-centred in evangelism we will be man-centred, no matter how much we quote the King James Bible, no matter how fundamentalist we sound, no matter how proud we are of 'preaching the hard truths.'  Without Christ it always comes back to me.  Only Christ-centredness is true God-centredness.

John 3:18 is emphatic - humanity is condemned already for its unbelief in Jesus.  The verdict is already handed down, the sentence is already passed, the human race is already lost.  The gavel has fallen, court is adjourned.  There's no higher Judge, no appeals process, no loopholes, no going back, no ifs, no buts.  Condemned.  Perfectly, completely, irreversibly condemned.

Are you human?  Are you flesh and blood?  Then you are condemned.  Condemned already.

You want a retrial?  Stiff bickies, as they say in Australia.

But let me tell you why it's good news that we're condemned already.

It means I'm not crushed under the weight of determining my eternity!  I don't stand at a crossroads with heaven and hell depending on my wise and moral choices.  Neither am I walking a tightrope - one wrong step and I plunge to my doom.  No, no.  Thank God the pressure's off.  I'm condemned already.

It means that none of my past sins have condemned me to hell and none of my future sins ever can.  That betrayal, that abortion, that infidelity, those years of rebellion will not take me to hell.  My sins and my works just don't have that power.  They don't even come into this equation.  They are only the fruit of a condemned tree, the symptoms of a condemned condition.  Reality is, I'm condemned already.

It means that both the problem and the solution lies in the realm of my being not of my doing.  I'm not expected to summon up the strength for a 5-point plan of salvation.  All that nonsense is irrelevant.  I'm condemned already.

It means I don't need to worry about judgement day as though that will have the decisive word on my destiny.  Judgement day is not about presenting my good works or my right confession of faith (as though we'll be in the queue nervously rehearsing our confession "Please let me in because of the blood of Jesus shed for me").  Nothing hangs in the balance. And no-one hangs in the balance. Judgement day will only confirm what we are and therefore what we have chosen.

It means that hell is God's pronouncement upon those who remain in unbelief: 'have it your way.'

And it means that Jesus is my only hope.  There's nothing in me that's not sunk in perdition.  Therefore my eyes are taken off myself.  I must look to a Saviour completely outside myself because I'm condemned already.

In evangelism it means that we do not address religious consumers with their capacities for choice.  Instead we address condemned criminals with news of a pardon.  We do not treat unbelievers as mighty decision-makers with eternity in their hands.  They are lost.   And we do not preach judgement simply as something hanging over them but as something in which they are already sunk.

Do you think we give enough emphasis to the already-ness of humanity's condemnation?

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