Missions
The result of all this is a familiar refrain: We must do more mission work. We must plant more churches. We must tell our neighbors about Jesus.
(Rom 10:14-17 ESV) 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Christianity is, at its core, a missionary religion. It’s an evangelistic religion.
This is because of a great paradox that lives near the center —
(John 3:16-18 ESV) 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
The evangelical world loves John 3:16. And well they should. But we struggle with the rest of the paragraph. Those who don’t believe are condemned.
The word translated “condemned” literally means “judged.” The logic is simple enough. Those in grace by faith aren’t judged by their own merits (praise God!). Those not in grace by faith are judged by their own merits and therefore condemned. They suffer a destruction — the second death — that is justly painful in proportion to their sins.
There are, of course, a great many passages promising destruction for those outside grace. It’s a very common New Testament teaching and key to the church being the church.
When we pretend the damned will be okay, that there is no suffering coming, we aren’t being remotely loving — not in any meaningful sense. We are being selfish. We’re excusing our sinful unwillingness to seek and save the lost.
But if God wants the damned damned, why evangelize?
Here’s the paradox. God loves the world. Therefore, he wants to save the world by providing grace to all. He wants all to believe in Jesus. But he’s just not going to save those who don’t.
The burden of spreading the gospel is thus placed squarely on the shoulders of the church and each individual Christian. God is among us. He even lives in us through his Spirit. We are not alone. We have ample help from On High. But if we don’t tell the lost, they aren’t going to be told.
We’re going to face God at Judgment accountable for our failures. We’ll see the faces of those we might have brought to Jesus. For whatever reason, God wants this part of his redemptive work done by us.
So why is faith so important? Why on earth does God draw the line at faith in Jesus rather than, say, love?
Jay said; “We’re going to face God at Judgment accountable for our failures. We’ll see the faces of those we might have brought to Jesus. For whatever reason, God wants this part of his redemptive work done by us.”
Jay it you are going to be judged by your failures, what makes your punishment less than those you did not teach, and oh by the way, where does this “saved by grace” come in. Seems to me you have switched to “saved by works”
Rev 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
By the way Jay, I agree with what you said, it just seemed strange coming from you.
Jam 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
No we won’t be saved by works alone, nor by faith alone, the only single thing that could save us is “God’s Grace” but I don’t see where that is going to happen. If he finds favor with some why not all.
Penn Teller the comedian/magician who is an avowed atheist, has said that if you really believe that Hell is real you must hate people if you do not tell them. He thinks we are nuts but he appreciates when Christians share with him the gospel. See the video below.
Johnny, It seemed to me that this “good man” came close, to changing a mind, maybe next time.
Perhaps it’s because basing salvation on love would be earning your salvation. And we can’t do that. Even our love is tainted with selfish motives.
Sometimes I think that when we hit this particular conundrum, we find a fork in the road. We can take the left fork, which says, “Well, that doesn’t make sense. I see no purpose in reaching out to the lost if God is sending most people to hell anyway.” Or we can take the right fork, which is best represented by the contemporary “starfish proverb”:
One morning after a storm, a boy was walking along the beach; he was picking up little sea creatures which had been washed onto the beach and tossing them back into the water. An old man saw what he was doing and commented, “You’re wasting your time, you know. There are far too many starfish and sea urchins and such out here for you to ever save them all. And the next storm will wash a whole new batch onto the shore anyway. That’s just the way it is. You’re just not making a difference.”
The boy picked up another starfish and hurled it out into the sea, and remarked, “Made a difference to that one.”
A good buddy of mine always says, “we have been saved to serve.” We will either do the good works prepared for us, or we will be unutilized and unrewarded vessels of God (Eph. 2:10). Penn is rarely that complementary. In a world where Christianity is more often considered “illogical and evil,” I appreciate that Christian who was so highly complimented by Penn.