Monday, March 11, 2013

End of Evangelicalism (3) Big Decision

The second big issue that David Fitch deals with is “The Decision”, especially through the sinners prayer. It leads to a narrow focus on penal substitutionary atonement, whereas the gospel is much bigger than that. It also leads to an emphasis on escape from hell and getting a ticket to heaven.

The recidivism rate of these who make decision for Christ is famously high (at least seventy-five percent never go on). David says that making a decision leads to a dissonance. I am saved but I am content to live in the same way that I always lived. The decision allows us to feel good about our belief without having to change anything. It shapes us for duplicity. People can say, “We are saved”, but it does not affect how they live. This makes the church appear hypocritical and is one reason why the world hates the church so much.

The decision leads to pride. We can look at others who have not made the decision and say, “at least I am not like them”. We feel better and morally superior.

David says that the solution is “more about entering into membership of the covenantal people of God in whom he is at work in to fulfil his promises to set the world right.”

We are invited to enter a salvation that God is working in the world. We are joining the Kingdom of God under Christ lordship.

Evangelism has over-personified salvation, making it into a transaction and has generally been preoccupied with the afterlife and escaping hell. It has ignored the message of the kingdom and has preached a personalised, middle-class gospel accommodated to the comforts of American prosperity.

The call for conversion is no longer, “Have you made a decision or receive Jesus as your personal saviour". It is “Have you entered into the salvation begun in Jesus Christ that God is working for the sake of the world?”.
This is good stuff.

My Response
This is my gospel. The world has been stuffed up by sin and evil. Jesus incarnation, ministry, death, revelation, ascension, giving of the Holy Spirit have set off a process to roll back the big stuff ups, beginning with me and rolling out to places that I and the others who join up have influence.

The initiation process should be based on Acts 3:38 with a bit of Romans 10:9.

Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Conversion has several elements.
  • Repentance
  • Belief in Jesus
  • Receive the Spirit
  • Declare Jesus is Lord

Baptism is a declaration of repentance, faith and allegiance to Jesus, and is the process by which we receive the Spirit. David Pawson wrote a good book on this called the Normal Christian Birth.

I dislike the expression “receive Jesus into your heart”. It turns Jesus into an add-on that we control. Receiving Jesus is not scriptural. Jesus still has a human body and he has ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. Although he now has a spiritual body, he cannot be in two places at the same time. He cannot be in with the Father and in my heart. The scriptures teach that if we believe in Jesus, we will receive the Spirit. This should be our gospel.

Conversion takes time. I remember reading about revival meetings in the nineteenth centuries, where people sat on the sinner’s bench and cried out to God for several days, before coming gloriously through. I do not want to go back to that style of evangelism, but it reminds us that conversion takes time. As soon as we get a whiff of repentance, or faith, we rush the person straight into the sinners prayer and tell them they are saved. This truncates the work that the Holy Spirit is doing. We must get better at letting the Holy Spirit do a full work of repentance in a person’s life, even if it takes several weeks.

The conversion experience will depend on where a person is coming from. We must be careful not to get into applying a formula. For some people, getting forgiveness from God will be important. For others, the guidance of the lordship of Jesus might be what they are seeking. We must allow the Holy Spirit to do what each person needs, rather than following a standard pattern. For example, a few may need deliverance from evil spirits, before they can believe. Most will be set free once they believe.

The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission

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