A few days ago, I heard a friend relate a conversation he had with a relative who claims to be a Christian yet, presently lives an immoral lifestyle.
When my friend tried to reprove her, her response was typical of many in a post-modern world: She turned on my friend and lambasted him for distorting the gospel. In a word, she said, “My God is not judgmental.”
Overlooking for a moment the fact that the whole notion that God never judges anyone is a serious distortion of the Gospel. The question needs to be asked “Why are such distorted views so popular today?” I could cite many contributing factors, but one of the main ones is the serious downplaying of theology for a ‘method-centered’ focus when it comes to evangelism. In other words, under the guise of keeping it (the gospel) simple, there has been a wholesale attempt to reduce our presentation to contain the least amount of theological content.
If you don’t believe that is the case, go and attend most evangelism conferences today. Most of them focus on finding the best methods by which to present the Gospel with little or no focus on the message. They assume, for the most part, that everyone has the message right and that what is needed is to practically discover the best methods of getting it out.
Of course, it is impossible to present the Gospel properly without making some theological assertions. So, what ends up happening is the presentation of half-truths as author Will Metzger points out:
“How dangerous a half-truth can be when presented as the
whole truth! For instance, the truth that God’s love is a
wonderful part of the gospel. However, if the whole
presentation of the gospel is built primarily on this truth,
distortion develops. Sinners can relax with the thought of
God’s love for them and find an excuse to delay repentance.
The biblical truth is inverted by non-Christians to mean,
“Love is God.” Then a human definition of love (nice,
tolerant, nonjudgmental) is substituted, and sinners find
great comfort in this personification and deification of love.
The love deity is programmed to only treat us kindly. We
have a “mush” God. A biblical truth thus becomes twisted
into an excuse for complacency. Such a view of God
contributes to the pervasive idea (even among Christians)
that God is obligated to save me. Created humanity is put
on a par with the Creator and his autonomy, and salvation
by grace is devilishly undercut” (Tell the Truth,
Will Metzger, page 89).
The story that opened this blog provides a great example of one who treats a half-truth as the whole. She assumed that the whole gospel is built on the inverted truth that “love is God.” The same book that teaches “God is love” (I John 4:8) also teaches “God is light” (which means He is holy; morally pure). Can these two be mixed? They must be if we are to hold forth the truth of the Gospel as Metzger states further:
“What if the truth that God is love was balanced with
the truth that God is light? God is morally pure, holy.
He is a just judge. He is angry with sin and will punish
those who persist in it. The love of God is now given a
backbone. It is seen as tough love, not as sentimentalism.
That he can still love sinners and freely offer himself to all
who believe becomes astounding news. One good question
to evaluate any gospel presentation is, “Was the nature of
God defined clearly and its implications impressed on
the mind and heart lovingly and firmly” (ibid p. 89).
A true gospel presentation therefore is grounded in the fact that when sharing the gospel with sinners, we must clearly present the God of the Bible in truth, not just in part. We must avoid playing up what we consider to be the good parts of our product (in this case the gospel), while ignoring entirely what we consider to be the negative aspects (woe to us for considering aspects of God’s nature as negative). Why do we do this? It is due to the fact we mistake the part (which we have experienced) for the whole. We are like the blind men in the parable who have never come across an elephant before and who learn and conceptualize what the elephant is like by touching it. Each blind man feels a different part of the elephant’s body and interprets the part as the whole. The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience, while ignoring other people’s limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true.
What is the answer? We must avoid presenting a jaundice view of God as many modern evangelist’s do today, making sure we are presenting the biblical portrait of God both as love and light, all the while remembering what Jesus said—that truth (and truth alone) sets us free (John 8:32).
Good stuff Brother Neil!