Motivation For Missions or Why Preach?

                            Posting 8   MOTIVATION FOR MISSIONS OR WHY PREACH?

          Evangelical Inclusivism acknowledges that some persons may be saved without having heard the gospel during their lifetime on earth. With this perspective, it is alleged, we lose the strongest motive for proclaiming the gospel, namely, rescuing sinners from eternal death. If sinners can be saved without hearing the gospel, why send out missionaries and why preach?

         In discussing this question we must keep in mind that if there is scriptural basis for Evangelical Inclusivism (“All persons will be saved except those who the Bible declares will be finally lost”), we must subject our thinking and our actions to it. We must do so whether or not we believe it will stimulate mission enterprise. To do otherwise is to elevate our opinion above the teaching of God's Word.

SOME PUZZLING QUESTIONS

Furthermore, the above allegation raises some serious questions. Has God determined that no one will be saved except by human proclamation of the gospel? Will the size of our missionary budgets and the quality of our outreach programs determine the number of people in heaven? Will the eternal destiny of some persons depend on whether or not someone made the effort to bring the gospel to them? Our salvation is not dependent upon our good works; does the salvation of millions of those living in non-Christian lands depend on our good works?

ROMANS 10:9–15

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?" Rom. 10:14

Rom. 10:14 appears to say YES in response to the above "puzzling questions." However this YES can be derived from Rom. 10:9–15 only by overlooking the good and necessary distinction that must be made between objective and subjective salvation. As we saw in Chapter 4, there will be a great deal of confusion if we fail to recognize the two distinct ways in which the Bible speaks about salvation.

Perhaps the simplest way to remind ourselves of the two ways the Bible uses the concept of salvation is to refer to 2 Cor. 5:19: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them [objective salvation]. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation [subjective salvation].”

There can be no doubt that Rom. 10:9–15 is speaking of subjective salvation. Subjective salvation occurs when the Holy Spirit transforms the sinner's heart, soul, and mind so that he or she desires to live in obedience to God's will. It is only in this subjective sense that Paul or anyone else can be an instrument used by God to subjectively save those who are already objectively saved by Jesus Christ.

         Subjective salvation is made certain, even in places where the gospel is not proclaimed, by the fact that God's arms are not shortened by the sinful neglect of the Great Commission. Apart from special revelation, sinners know God; their thoughts accuse or defend them (Rom. 1:21, 2:14–16). If need be, God can cause "stones to cry out," donkeys to talk, or a star to lead the Magi to Christ. God will accomplish his eternal purposes with or without human means.

         The only revealed means for causing sinners to experience the full joy of their salvation, to give fitting praise to God and becoming an active part of the community of believers is the Word preached. This task has been given to the church. Paul challenges the church to get on with its task by asking: "How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?" Therefore the passage concludes: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Rom. 10:14–15; Isa. 52:7).

          The fact that God has entrusted the preaching of the Word (proclaiming the good news) to the church does not mean that God is unable or unwilling to save any among those who do not hear the good news proclaimed by human agents. God the Father has chosen his people. By sovereign grace, the Holy Spirit can and will create new life in all those chosen by the Father.. Jesus will lose none of all those who were given to him. "And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day" (John 6:39).

         But the question still deserves an answer: “Why send missionaries and preach the Word if all persons who are elect in Christ are certain to come to salvation one way or another?” The Bible provides these answers among others:

1. BECAUSE THE COMMAND OF CHRIST REMAINS THE SAME (Matt. 28:19)

          To "make disciples" is to establish a "teacher/student" relationship. To become mature “disciples” of Jesus, these students must come to know that out of sheer grace, earned [past tense] for them by Christ, not only others, but they too, have had [past tense] their sins forgiven, have been made [past tense] forever right with God and have been [past tense] granted salvation. This knowledge becomes a deep-rooted assurance only by the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit using the means of the Word preached. Therefore, this teaching and nurturing activity must be continually bathed in the prayers of God's people (Eph. 4:11–16; Heid. Cat. Q & A 21).

These "teachers" have been given "the ministry of reconciliation." They identify themselves with their "students" in proclaiming that "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us [teacher and student], so that in him we [teacher and student] might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21). Only on the assumption that both the teacher and the student have been "reconciled [past tense] to God" can the message of reconciliation be meaningfully communicated from the teacher to the student.

2. BECAUSE THERE IS ONLY ONE GOSPEL FOR ALL PERSONS (see Posting 7).

No wonder the heavens were radiant with the glory of God the night Jesus was born. The angel announced, "I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:10).

Jesus was "born to the Jews," it is said, and therefore the "good news of great joy that will be for all the people" was intended for the Jews as "God's people." So be it. This takes nothing away from the fact that this same "good news" ought to be declared and published to all nations and to all persons. With the Holy Spirit upon him, Simeon said, "My eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel" (Luke 2:30).

3. BECAUSE THERE ARE THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN REDEEMED BY CHRIST AMONG ‘EVERY TRIBE AND LANGUAGE AND PEOPLE AND NATION’ (Rev. 6:9)

Suppose for a moment that as a missionary you are told of a village of some 150 inhabitants who have never heard the gospel. In some miraculous way, you know that every one of them is an adopted child of God. They are those for whom Christ died, whose everlasting salvation is consequently assured. Would you avoid this village because "there is no need to tell them the good news?"

When the citizens of Corinth became abusive, Paul was inclined to leave without doing further work among them. The Lord told Paul, "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent . . . because I have many people in this city." The result? Paul did not reason to himself “God himself told me he has ‘many people in this city,’ their salvation is therefore secure, they have no need of me.” Instead the passage continues, "So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God" (Acts 18:9–11). Similarly, to view and to relate to all persons as God's chosen people, until and unless we have knowledge to the contrary, encourages us to "stay and teach them the word of God."

4. BECAUSE EVERY ACCOUNTABLE PERSON HAS A DECISION TO MAKE

Evangelical Inclusivism recognizes that every sinner has a choice to make. This is not the power of contrary choice. Unbelievers are not in a neutral position from which they can choose good or evil. No one conceived and born in sin has the capacity within himself or herself to choose the good. Those who choose to repent and believe will experience that decision as though their own strength and determination of will made the decision. However, it is God who "gives [them] repentance" as he works in them "to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Acts 5:31; Acts 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25; Phil. 2:13).

God gives this gift of his Holy Spirit to everyone except those who personally, willfully, and finally remain indifferent to it (Acts 15–18). This decision to reject or remain indifferent to the revelation God gives of himself is made in the sinner's "own strength and determination of will." This is true whether this revelation comes through nature (Acts 14:17; Rom. 1:19–25), conscience (Rom. 2:15–16), or the proclamation of the gospel (John 5:45–47). Such indifference or rejection sets in motion a hardening process that, if persisted in, ends in eternal death (see the last three paragraphs of Posting 5).

God does not sentence anyone to eternal death because no one brought the gospel to them. The only basis for condemnation (consignment to Hell) is the fact that those persons have willfully, persistently, and finally rejected or remained indifferent to whatever revelation God has given of himself to them (see Chapter 2). They have "exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the creator—who is forever praised" (Rom. 1:25). It is for this reason alone that they "are without excuse" (Rom. 1:20).

In Acts 27:21–32 we find a parallel to the fact that warnings against unfaithfulness come to those who are assumed to be elect. Paul announces, “Not one of you will be lost, only the ship.” Nevertheless the consequences would have been fatal if any among them did not heed the warning that came later: “Unless these men stay with the ship you cannot be saved.” There is a triumph of grace in Christ Jesus that is to be announced and declared to all people. All persons will share in this grace except those who willfully and finally “suppress the truth” (Rom. 1:28) and do “not see fit to acknowledge God” (Rom. 1:28).

Therefore, with life or death urgency the church must use the one tool given to it—the Word preached—to seek to persuade all people everywhere to be reconciled to God. Nowhere can sinners see the ugliness of their sin and the astonishing light of God's redeeming love as clearly as in "Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2).

5. BECAUSE THE MAN OF GOD NEEDS TO BE "THOROUGHLY EQUIPPED FOR EVERY GOOD WORK" (2 Tim. 3:17)

          God wants all of his people to be prepared "for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son and God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:12,13).

          Without the "very words of God" being proclaimed, God's will for every aspect of the redeemed sinner's life remains in a significant sense "unknown." In the closing portion of Rom. 2, Paul speaks of the fact that both those who were circumcised (Jews) and those not circumcised (Gentiles) could either break the law or be praised by God (Rom. 2:25–29). Both covenant people and those outside that covenant fellowship are treated in the same way. No wonder Paul asks, "What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew or what value is there in circumcision?" (Rom. 3:1).

          We do no injustice to this question if we ask, "What advantage, then, is there in being a member of the church or what value is there in baptism?" Very significantly, Paul does not answer by saying, "Only among those incorporated into the fellowship of the church and receive baptism is there salvation." Instead, Paul says "Much in every way!" Of primary importance, "they have been entrusted with the very words of God" (Rom. 3:2).

         The advantage of being a Jew was to be entrusted with the Old Testament as "the very words of God." How much greater is the advantage of those who, through the work of missionaries and the preaching of the Word, are entrusted with both the Old and the New Testament as "the very words of God"! Together with this, the sign and seal of God's commitment and promise of grace (baptism in place of circumcision) is given to them.

          What fellowship, joy, light, comfort, hope, vision, encouragement, peace, nurturing, "teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" begin to shape the lives of redeemed sinners when and if they become part of the community of believers (the visible church) by way of the work of missionaries! Even if we were given to know that all those living in non-Christian lands were elect in Christ and certain to be saved without hearing the gospel, we would still have ample reason to bring the "good news" of what God in Christ has done for them.

"How can God tolerate our leaving people in their despair a moment longer when he has given us such good news for them?" This question was asked by the Rev. James L. Vander Laan, former Director of Disability Concerns for the Christian Reformed Church. This question addresses a basic motive for doing mission work and the very purpose for Jesus’ coming into this world as announced by the angel: “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”

_______________________

Dr. Edward Wm. Fudge accepts the premise of Evangelical Inclusivism and maintains a very significant Internet ministry. In a "gracEmail" (the logo for his ministry) he very graciously and knowledgeably responded to the question we discussed in this chapter:

       "In an earlier "gracEmail," I stated that God will judge all people by the light they had and not by truth they could not know. A missionary in South America asks, "If that is so, am I wasting my time here? Why preach the gospel today? Are you saying that people are saved apart from Jesus Christ?"

       Not at all. I am saying that no one will finally be saved except through Jesus Christ and what God accomplished through him. That includes people who lived before Jesus and after Jesus—within Israel and among the nations. That is not to say that all those saved people knew in this life the details of God's work in Christ, although they all did relate to God in the kind of creaturely faith we see in the patriarch Abraham, "the father of the faithful" (Acts 4:11–12; Rom. 2:11–16; Rom. 4:1–16).

        Are you wasting your time? No! You are obeying Jesus, fulfilling his Great Commission (Matt. 28:18–20). You are speaking because you believe (2 Cor. 4:13) and are sharing the way of life (Acts 11:18). You are turning people from darkness to light (Col. 1:13–14), introducing people to the living and true God (1 Thess. 1:9–10) and spreading hope of eternal life (Titus 1:1–3). You are giving freedom over fear of death (Heb. 2:14–15), inspiring a living hope (1 Pet. 1:3) and filling people with joy and peace in believing (Rom. 15:13). You are giving assurance of God's mercy that transforms lives (Titus 2:11–15). You are bestowing many, many other blessings through the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

         In the process, you are being used by God as an agent in the salvation of those who through your ministry receive the grace of God (2 Cor. 5:18–6:2). The gospel is God's power for saving sinners—in the fullest sense of the word "save" (Rom. 1:16). The kingdom of God brings wholeness and healing of all kinds—spiritual, emotional and physical (Acts 4:10–12). Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). We are privileged to tell people what God has done for them through him, and how God has revealed himself most fully through his only-begotten Son, the divine Word made flesh, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. Our success depends on God. His success does not depend on us.