Evangelical Essentials Stott

Evangelical Essentials By John Stott AN ADDRESS FOR THE IFES WORLD ASSEMBLY IN KOREA JULY 1999 'Evangelical' is a noble word. It has a long and honourable history. It is a name which IFES bears with pride and thankfulness, and of which none of us should ever be ashamed. The evangelical faith is not a recent innovation, a new brand of Christianity which we are busy inventing. On the contrary, we dare to claim that evangelical Christianity is original, apostolic, New Testament Christianity. We affirm, as Luther did: 'We teach no new thing; but we repeat and establish old things, which the apostles and all godly teachers have taught before us'. More eloquent still was the insistence of Bishop John Jewel of Salisbury in the 16th century: 'It is not our doctrine that we bring you this day; we wrote it not, we found it not out, we are not the inventors of it; we bring you nothing but what the old fathers of the church, what the apostles, what Christ our Saviour himself hath brought before us.' In consequence, evangelical Christianity is not a deviation from Christian orthodoxy. It is neither an eddy nor a backwater; it is mainstream Christianity. I now proceed to ask and answer two basic questions about evangelical Christianity: a) What are the main convictions which evangelical Christians share? b) What are the main challenges which evangelical Christians face? A/ THE CONVICTIONS WE SHARE We begin by recognizing that many truths are shared by all who profess and call themselves Christians, for example, the truths contained in the Apostles' and the Nicene Creeds. Yet there are other truths which evangelical Christians specially emphasize, which we are unwilling to surrender or compromise, and which (with due modesty, I hope) we see ourselves as holding in trust for the rest of the church. Several attempts have been made to analyse the evangelical faith and to list our evangelical distinctives. For myself I suggest that the most helpful way is to portray the evangelical faith as the Trinitarian faith. Our three evangelical essentials can then be stated as follows: 1) the revealing initiative of God the Father; 2) the redeeming sacrifice of God the Son; 3) the renewing ministry of God the Holy Spirit. Other evangelical essentials would include active evangelism, the need for personal conversion, the quest for holiness, world mission, the importance of fellowship. But these all fit naturally into the Trinitarian structure, since it is our triune God himself who causes conversion, promotes holiness, stimulates evangelism and creates fellowship. 1) The Revelation of God Belief in divine revelation lies at the heart of the evangelical faith. We believe that Almighty God is infinite in his perfections; and that our little finite minds (though they reflect the image of God in which we were created) are utterly incapable of reaching or reading the mind of God. There is no ladder by which to climb up into God's mind, and no bridge which could span the chasm between him and us. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth', God says in Isaiah 55:9, 'so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts'. That is, God's thoughts are as much higher than our thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth, which is infinity. We cannot even read each other's minds; how much less could we read the mind of God? If I were to stand here silent, you would not have the remotest idea what I was thinking about. Try! What was going on in my mind? I'll tell you. I was swimming in the ocean. But you could not read my thoughts. Even more are God's thoughts inaccessible to us. At this moment, however, you know exactly what I am thinking because I am speaking to you. I am communicating the thoughts of my mind by the words of my mouth. In the same way God has spoken, partly through the ordered loveliness of the creation, but supremely in Jesus Christ, the word made flesh, and in the total biblical witness to him. We would know nothing about God if he had not taken the initiative to make himself known. Moreover, the way God spoke was through the words of the human authors of scripture. This is the meaning of 'inspiration'. We believe neither that God spoke independently of the human authors, nor that they spoke independently of the divine author. Instead we affirm the double authorship of Scripture, because this is the Bible's own account of itself. On the one hand, 'God spoke through the prophets' (Hebrews 1:1), and on the other 'men spoke from God' (2 Peter 1:21). So we must hold fast to the inspiration and authority of Scripture. Tradition is important, because the Holy Spirit has been teaching the church in every generation. We must also use our God-given minds to study and apply Scripture.

But Scripture, as God's written word, has supreme authority, even over the traditions of the church and over the opinions of individuals. And of God's revealed truth we are privileged guardians and stewards. This emphasis on revealed truth is entirely incompatible with the current moods of both 'modernity' and 'postmodernity'. We reject modernity, which is the spirit of the Enlightenment, because it tried to replace revelation with reason, and proclaimed the autonomy of the human mind. We reject the spirit of postmodernity because it tries to replace the concept of objective and universal truth with an unlimited range of culturally-conditioned, subjective 'truths'. 2) The Cross of Christ Of course evangelical believers also affirm the unique person of Christ (his two natures in one person), his incarnation and his resurrection. For his death would lack efficacy if it had not been both preceded by his incarnation (it was the unique God-man who died for us) and followed by his resurrection (by which God validated the atoning death of his Son). But we are convinced that the cross is the centre of the Christian faith. It is not an accident that the cross is the symbol of Christianity. For, as Dr Leon Morris has written, 'the cross dominates the New Testament'. But why did Christ die? Why is the cross central to Christian faith and life? How could this object of horror (as crucifixion was in Roman society) become for Christians an object of glory? Our answer to these questions begins with the observation that, according to the principal New Testament writers, Christ's death and our sins are inextricably linked. For example Paul: 'Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures' (1 Cor 15:3) Peter: 'Christ died for sins once for all' (1 Peter 3:18) John: God 'sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins' (1 John 4:10) Now throughout Scripture, at least from Genesis 2 to Revelation 21, sin and death are coupled as a human offence and its divine penalty. Therefore, since Jesus was sinless, and had no sins of his own for which atonement needed to be made, the death he died must have been the penalty for our sins. We deserved to die, bearing the penalty of our own sin, but he died instead, in our place. Evangelical believers are irrevocably committed to this wonderful doctrine of a substitutionary atonement, namely that God in his amazing love substituted himself for us, bearing our sin and dying our death, which is the plain meaning of many texts. Of course we have to hedge it round with every possible safeguard, in order to protect it from misrepresentation. We must never suggest (as some of us sometimes do) that Jesus was a third party who intervened between God and us, and so rescued us from judgment because God the Father was unwilling to take action. No, no. God is always depicted in Scripture as having taken the initiative in his love. For example, 'God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself' (2 Cor 5:19). Yet what he did in and through Christ was to bear our sin and die our death. Thus 'Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law (ie the curse which the law pronounces on those who disobey it) by becoming a curse for us' (Gal 3:13). Such a radical remedy presupposes a radical need, namely that we have rebelled against God and have brought ourselves under the just judgment of God. This is another essential evangelical conviction. Without it our understanding of the nature and the necessity of the cross is bound to be skewed. As Bishop JC Ryle put it, the second leading feature of evangelical religion (the first being the supremacy of Scripture) is 'the depth and prominence it assigns to the doctrine of human sinfulness and corruption'. By contrast, a permanent characteristic of liberal religion is to make light of sin and so make light of the cross. But it is false prophets who proclaim 'peace, peace' when there is no peace, and it is bad doctors who dress a deep wound superficially as if it were not serious. Of course we must avoid any morbid tendency to arouse in people a false guilt. But equally we must not minimize sin and true guilt. Sin is a fatal twist in fallen human nature, so that a sinner (in Luther's vivid phrase) is homo in se incurvatus ('man curved in on himself'). Sin is also a rebellion against God. In Emil Brunner's words, it is 'the desire for the autonomy of man' and therefore 'in the last resort it is the denial of God and self-deification; it is getting rid of the Lord God, and the proclamation of self-sovereignty'. It is only when we have seen and acknowledged the sinfulness of sin and the holiness of God, that we come to realise our plight, namely that we are lost. We can neither save ourselves nor even contribute to our salvation. Salvation is a totally non-contributory gift of God. As William Temple put it, 'the only thing of my very own which I contribute to my redemption is the sin from which I need to be redeemed'. For God has loved us, and Christ has died for us, and we are justified (that is, accepted before him) by his grace alone on the ground of Christ crucified alone, through faith alone. Our critics accuse us of antinomianism, that is, of proclaiming that, since justification is by faith alone, without works, we are free from any obligation to the moral law and can behave as we please. But this is a slander, which it is not difficult to rebut. We must insist that God never justifies sinners through the cross without simultaneously regenerating them through the Spirit. Then sanctification will follow justification, as growth follows birth.

This brings us back to the cross, which is the way of holiness as well as the way of forgiveness. For this is the summons of Jesus: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me' (Mark 8:34). Since the Romans compelled a condemned man to carry his cross to the place of crucifixion, Jesus was inviting us to put ourselves into the position of someone on his way to execution. As Bonhoeffer wrote, 'when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die'. This teaching is extremely important today, because we have a constant tendency to trivialize Christian discipleship. People think of it as if it meant no more than being a bit religious, and adding a thin layer of piety to an otherwise secular life. But no! Becoming and being a Christian involves a change so radical that no imagery can do it justice except death and resurrection with Christ, dying to the old life of selfindulgence, and rising to a new life of holiness and love. At this point, having considered briefly and separately the first and second evangelical convictions, namely the revelation of God and the cross of Christ, we pause to note their similarity to each other in one particular respect: both are finished works. God's revelation in and through Christ is complete, and God's redemption in and through Christ is also complete. Consequently in the New Testament the same greek adverb is applied to them both, namely the word hapax or ephapax, which means 'once and for all' and expresses finality. Thus, what God has spoken in Christ is hapax, once and for all, and what God has done in Christ is also hapax, once and for all . With regard to God's revelation, Jude wrote of 'the faith that was once for all (hapax) entrusted to the saints', the people of God (Jude 3). With regard to God's redemption, Paul, Peter and Hebrews all speak of the cross in the same way. For example, Paul wrote that 'the death he died, he died to sin once for all (hapax)' (Romans 6:10). When we have grasped the absolute finality of what God has said and done in Christ, we evangelical people are determined to hold both fast. It is inconceivable to us that any truth could be revealed that is higher than what God has revealed in his own incarnate Son. It is equally inconceivable that anything should be deemed necessary to our salvation in addition to the cross. To add any word of our own to God's completed word in Christ, or to add any work of our own to God's finished work in Christ, would be dreadfully derogatory to the unique glory of Christ's person and work. Our critics are quick to jump on this evangelical insistence on the finality of the incarnation and the atonement. They accuse us of restricting God's saving activity to the first half of the first century AD, and of relegating Christianity to a historical museum. What they have overlooked, however, is the contemporary ministry of the Holy Spirit as the third evangelical essential. In one sense the coming of the Spirit was also hapax, for he came once for all, to be with us 'forever' (John 14:16). But in another sense his ministry is continuous and increasing. So the appropriate adverb with which to describe the Holy Spirit's activity today is not hapax ('once for all'), but mallon ('more and more'). We are to please God 'more and more' and to love one another 'more and more' (e.g. Phil 1:9; 1 Thess 4:1, 10). Thus the essentials of the evangelical faith may be encapsulated in the combination of the two adverbs hapax and mallon. God's work through Christ is hapax, but his work through the Spirit is mallon. God has no more to teach us than he has revealed hapax in Christ; but we have much more to learn, as the Holy Spirit witnesses to Christ and so enables us to understand God's revelation ever more fully (mallon). God has no more to give us than he has given us hapax in Christ; but we have much more to receive, as the Holy Spirit enables us to appropriate God's gifts ever more fully (mallon). This brings us to focus on the third evangelical essential: 3) The Ministry of the Holy Spirit Although regrettably we evangelical people do not altogether agree with one another in our understanding of the Holy Spirit, yet what unites us is far greater than what divides us. For we all believe in the Holy Spirit, the gracious and glorious third person of the Trinity. So, our third evangelical conviction is that the Christian life is life in the Spirit, and that the work of the Holy Spirit is indispensable, since without him we could neither become nor be Christians at all. Perhaps the best way to grasp the indispensability of the work of the Holy Spirit is to consider in turn the six main stages or aspects of Christian discipleship. First, the Holy Spirit and Christian beginnings The Holy Spirit brings about the new birth, which is a deep, inward, radical change in the inner recesses of our human personality, by which we receive a new life, a new heart, and a new beginning. The new birth is not identical with baptism, although baptism is a visible, public dramatization of this inward and secret reality of the new birth. Evangelical Christians seek to be true to the teaching of Jesus by insisting as he did: 'you must be born again' (John 3:7). Secondly, the Holy Spirit and Christian assurance The Holy Spirit does not bring about the new birth and then abandon us. He stays with us. Better still, he dwells in us.

This indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a most marvellous privilege. The Old Testament people of God looked forward to it, and it is the chief distinguishing mark of the New Testament people of God. For 'if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ' (Romans 8:9). And one of the main ministries of the indwelling Spirit is to give us assurance of Salvation. True, we must be careful lest Christian assurance degenerates into presumption. But we are told that the Holy Spirit both pours God's love into our hearts (Romans 5:5) and bears witness with our spirit that we are his children (Romans 8:16). To be deeply aware of God's love and fatherhood should be an authentic experience of all his children. Other deeper and richer experiences of him are possible, but we should be careful not to stereotype them. Thirdly, the Holy Spirit and Christian holiness It is not an accident that God's Spirit is called 'the Holy Spirit'. One of his main ministries is to make us holy, that is, to transform us into the likeness of Christ (e.g. 2 Cor 3:18). The apostle Paul introduces us in his letters to the unrelenting inner conflict which we experience between 'the flesh' (our fallen, self-indulgent nature) and 'the Spirit' (the indwelling Holy Spirit himself). He also refers to Christ-like character and conduct as 'the fruit of the Spirit', which ripens steadily and naturally provided that we repudiate what belongs to our fallen nature and 'walk in the Spirit', responding to his promptings and living under his control. Fourthly, the Holy Spirit and Christian Community We evangelical people have the reputation of being rugged individualists, and so of having an inadequate doctrine of the church. But we know that the church is at the centre of the eternal and historical purpose of God. Moreover, the church is the Spirit-indwelt body of Christ. It is called 'the fellowship of the Spirit' (Phil 2:1), because it is our common participation in him which makes us one. Although we evangelical believers differ in our precise doctrine of the church, we all regret its present imperfections and we all regard its greater purity (both doctrinal and ethical) as a proper goal to seek. Most evangelical people believe that God intends his church to have some kind of 'oversight', understood in 'pastoral' rather than 'priestly' terms, although its form varies from church to church. We also believe that charismata (gifts of the Spirit) are given to all God's people. We further agree that their nature is very varied, their purpose is the common good, and the criterion for evaluating them is the degree to which they build up the church (1 Cor 14:12). Fifthly, the Holy Spirit and Christian Mission Mission has always been an evangelical preoccupation, and we acknowledge the Holy Spirit as the chief evangelist. Jesus himself clearly taught, during his ministry on earth, the missionary nature of the Holy Spirit. For he promised that 'streams of living water' would flow out from within believers, and John added that he was alluding to the Spirit (John 7:37-39). So the Holy Spirit is a missionary Spirit and Pentecost was essentially a missionary event. The long-standing debate among Christians about the relation between evangelism and social action seems now to be over. It is widely recognized among us that, as in the ministry of Jesus so in ours, words and works, the proclamation and the demonstration of the Kingdom, good news and good deeds belong together. The gospel needs to be spread visually as well as verbally. These two things are 'like the two blades of a pair of scissors or the two wings of a bird'. Sixthly, the Holy Spirit and the Christian Hope By the use of three metaphors the New Testament depicts the Holy Spirit as both God's gift for the present and God's pledge for the future. The first metaphor is commercial. The gift of the Spirit is like the down payment in a transaction; it is both the first installment and the guarantee that the full purchase money will follow (eg 2 Cor 1:22; Eph 1:14). The second metaphor is agricultural. The gift of the Spirit is like the reaping of the firstfruits; it is both the beginning of the harvest and the guarantee that the rest will follow (Rom 8:23). The third metaphor is social. The gift of the Spirit is like the first course of a banquet; it is both the foretaste and the guarantee that the rest of the meal will follow (Heb 6:4f). In each case the Holy Spirit is both gift and promise, both initial experience and the ground of future hope. We may not agree about such prophetic questions as the tribulation, the rapture and the millennium, but we all look forward to the return of Christ, the resurrection of the body and the new universe. For we know we are living 'inbetween times', between the two comings of Christ, between present reality and future destiny and it is the Holy Spirit whose indwelling spans the gulf between the 'already' and the 'not yet'. So then, from beginning to end, from our initiation into Christ until the return of Christ, the Holy Spirit has a unique and indispensable role to fulfil. We may differ in our precise formulation of the baptism and gifts of the Spirit. But we all acknowledge that the new birth is birth of the Spirit, that Christian assurance is due to the inner witness of the Spirit, that holiness is the fruit of the Spirit, that the church is the fellowship of the Spirit, that world mission owes its impetus to the Spirit, and that our Christian hope is kindled by the gift of the Spirit.

May God make us in IFES wholesome and balanced Trinitarian Christians, as we affirm revelation from the Father, redemption through the Son and renewal by the Holy Spirit, and so keep together the Bible, the Cross and the Spirit. It would be a mistake to conclude, however, that the evangelical faith is nothing but a catalogue of doctrines. To be an evangelical Christian is not just to subscribe to orthodox formulae; it is to live a new life in response both to biblical truth and to contemporary culture. So we move on now from the convictions we share to... B) THE CHALLENGES WE FACE In order to grasp these, I don't think we can do better than listen to the apostle Paul as he challenges his readers at the end of Philippians chapter 1 (verses 27-30). You will notice that the apostle alludes in verse 27 both to 'the gospel of Christ' and to 'the faith of the gospel', that is to the evangelical faith. And he begs the Philippians to live appropriately: 'Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved - and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.' The apostle is under house arrest. His freedom is curtailed. He is unable either to visit the churches he has planted or to engage in more pioneer evangelism. He is confined, like a bird in a cage. But 'whatever happens', he writes, whether he is released or not, whether he lives or dies, his main concern is not what will happen to him, but what will happen to the gospel. It is in the light of this that he issues a fivefold summons. First, there is the challenge to evangelical integrity, or the call to live a life that is worthy of the gospel. There is to be no conflict between what we profess and what we practise, but rather a fundamental consistency. In previous generations evangelical Christians were earnest in their pursuit of holiness. They took seriously God's repeated command to his people: 'Be holy because I am holy'. Today, however, it seems more difficult to obey. For we are surrounded on all sides with an alien culture which is characterized by ethical relativism, selfish ambition, materialism, covetousness, the breakdown of the family, and the loss of sexual self-control. We are called to resist these pressures and instead to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Evangelical faith without evangelical holiness displeases God, discredits us and hinders evangelism. For we cannot preach the gospel unless we embody it. Secondly, there is the challenge to evangelical stability, or the call to stand firm in the gospel. Stability is important in every sphere. We talk about the need for a stable government, and a stable economy, about stable buildings and stable characters. And Christian stability meant much to the apostles, for they spent time 'stablishing' their converts. They knew the strength of satanic opposition - intellectual (through false teaching), moral (through temptation) and physical (through persecution). Against it the apostles urged Christians to put on God's armour in order to stand firm. Yet stability in both doctrine and ethics is in short supply today. Too many of us are tossed about by the winds and waves of false teaching. We are more like reeds shaken by the wind of public opinion than like rocks in a mountain torrent. There is an urgent need for stable Christians today. Thirdly, there is the challenge to evangelical truth, or the call to contend for the faith of the gospel. We are not only to stand firm in the gospel ourselves, but also to fight for it in the public arena. This will involve a combination of evangelism (proclaiming the gospel) and apologetics (defending the gospel). See Philippians 1, verses 7 and 16. The apostles did not separate these responsibilities. There was a strong element of apologetics in all their evangelism. The apostle Paul could sum up his ministry in the words 'we persuade people' (2 Cor 5:11). And Luke describes him doing so, reasoning with people and seeking to convince them of the truth. Of course his trust was in the Holy Spirit, who alone can win people for Christ. But the Holy Spirit is 'the Spirit of truth', who brings people to faith not in spite of the evidence, but because of the evidence when he opens their minds to attend to it. Fourthly, there is the challenge to evangelical unity, or the call to work together for the gospel. Unity is one of the recurring themes of this letter to the Philippians. Paul begs his readers to 'stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel' (verse 27). He goes on to urge them (2:2): 'make my joy complete by being likeminded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose'. It is important to observe, however, what kind of unity Paul is commending. On the one hand, it is not unity at any price, even by compromising fundamental truths in order to attain it. On the other hand, it is not unity in every particular, expecting everybody to dot every 'I' and cross every 'T' exactly as we do. Instead, it is unity in the gospel, in the fundamentals of the evangelical faith. IFES is committed to the defence of evangelical essentials, which Scripture plainly teaches. At the same time we may give one another liberty in secondary matters. These are the socalled adiaphora (matters of indifference) in which equally biblical Christians, equally anxious to submit to Scripture, disagree (e.g. questions relating to the volume of water necessary to validate a baptism, the precise meaning of the Lord's supper, forms of church government, styles of public worship, church music, the fulfillment

of prophecy and the last things). It was Peter Meiderlin, the 17th century Lutheran theologian, who seems to have composed the epigram which Richard Baxter loved to quote, namely, 'in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity'. Fifthly, there is the challenge to evangelical endurance, or the call to suffer for the gospel. Paul urges his readers not to be frightened by their adversaries, and adds that faith in Christ and suffering for Christ are twin gifts of God's grace. Certainly Jesus and his apostles strongly insisted that suffering for the gospel is unavoidable. Why is this? What is it about the gospel which arouses people's hostility? I think it is partly that it proclaims the uniqueness and finality of Christ (whereas the world is increasingly pluralistic), partly that it offers salvation as a free and undeserved gift (whereas the proud human heart longs to earn it), and partly that it demands high moral standards (whereas the world has embraced ethical relativism). Those of us who live in the West are not called to suffer much, or at least not physically. Christians in other cultures, however, are experiencing growing opposition. It is even calculated that the number of Christian martyrs has been greater in the 20th century than in any previous period of church history. We can hardly fail to be stirred by the apostle's challenges, as they come to us across the centuries. He calls us to live a life worthy of the gospel, to stand firm in it, to contend for it earnestly, to struggle for it together, and to be willing to suffer for it. All this is involved in the challenge to maintain the evangelical faith today. *** As I draw to a close, my mind moves on to another and later imprisonment, which was endured by the apostle Paul. During it he wrote his final letter, his second letter to Timothy. His appeal to Timothy is all the more poignant because he knows he is approaching his death. 'The time has come for my departure', he writes (2 Tim 4:6). Again, 'I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness...' (2 Tim 4:7,8). It is very probable that Paul is languishing in the Mamertine prison in Rome. It was a dreadful underground dungeon, with only a hole in the ceiling for air and light. Already he knows that he will not be released. Already with his mind's eye he can see the flash of the executioner's sword. What then will happen to the gospel after his death? Still the same question preoccupies his mind. Will Timothy step into his shoes? Will he grasp the baton and run with it? Will he pick up the torch and hold it high? I hope you will not think it inappropriate, even melodramatic, if I put similar questions to you. For of course I am not an apostle, let alone the apostle Paul. And I am not confined to prison. Nor, so far as I know, am I about to be executed. Nevertheless, I am approaching the age of 80, and am therefore considerably older than Paul was when he was writing to Timothy. So I can say with him that my departure is approaching. And I do feel something of his anxiety about the future evangelical leadership of the church. So I venture to ask you: where are the Timothys of the rising generation and of the new millennium? That is, where are the young men and women who will resist the pressures of the prevailing culture, who will stand firm in their commitment to the authority of Scripture, and who will spend their lives in the liberating service of the gospel? Where are they? Will IFES develop and nurture them? You may be young, shy and weak. So was Timothy. You may live in a hostile environment. So did Timothy. But like Timothy you have all the resources you need, in the God-breathed Scriptures of the Old Testament and in the teaching and example of the apostles in the New Testament; they can guide, equip and inspire you. So stand firm, I beg you. And 'be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus' (2 Tim 2:1).