Status Updates From God-Centred Evangelism

Man is immortal. He has an eternal destiny. But that destiny is not the same for all. Some will inherit everlasting life; others will suffer everlasting death. Some will enjoy never-ending communion with God; others will be banished from God's presence for ever.

Love for God and His Christ will induce, yes compel, God's child to devote himself wholeheartedly to the spread of the evangel because he knows that its ultimate end will be the glorification of God and Christ. Through evangelism the day will be hastened when 'every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father' (Phil. 2:11). That is the chiefest concern of him who loves God.

He who takes the statement, 'Mercy rejoiceth against judgment' (James 2:14), to mean that the divine mercy renders the divine justice inoperative is guilty of the most careless sort of exegesis.

As regards salvation, the only difference between the saints of the old dispensation and those of the new is that the former were saved by faith in the Christ of prophecy, whereas the latter are saved by faith in the Christ of history. But it goes without saying that the Christ of prophecy and the Christ of history are one and the same.

Pentecost is often spoken of as the birthday of the Christian church. That is a mistake. Ever since the fall of man there has been but one way of salvation. All who were saved were saved by faith in Christ. And all who believed in Him were members of His body, the church.

Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

God has promised to be the God, not only of those who believe, but also of their seed, and that, hence, He is wont as a general rule to bestow saving grace on the children of believers.

Although revealed in stages, the one covenant of grace is continuous throughout the ages. It embraces believers of all times. "They which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham' (Gal. 3:7). Believers are told: If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise' (Gal. 3:29).

Saving faith is a gift of the electing God to His elect by which their election is realized (Eph. 2: 8). Instead of being the ground of election, it is one of its consequences.

Those who proclaim the gospel may be bound, and often are, 'but the Word of God is not bound' (II Tim. 2: 9) because the Spirit of God cannot be bound.

Evangelism is simply the promulgation of the evangel, the bringing of the gospel to the unsaved anywhere.