| The Certainty of Christ’s Gospel |
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| Friday, 15 May 2009 14:34 | ||||||||||||||||||
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The Bible commands us to “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you”( 1 Peter 3:15). This could be a daunting task except for the fact that Jesus Christ and His Word are the absolute truth (John 17:17; Psalm 119:144, 151, 152). Because only Christianity is true, not just probable, our biblical understanding of reality makes sense and every other approach to reality is intellectually foolish and constitutes cognitive rebellion against God. The fact that only Christianity is true is obviously a great advantage and gives Christians the confidence to boldly proclaim the gospel even in the face of fierce opposition. APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE The early church had to face a world like ours, full of pagan unbelief, Greek philosophical skepticism, theological error and opposition by apostate Judaism. How did the apostles engage their times? They certainly did not try to appease or accommodate error and unbelief. They did not say “the Gospel is true for me, but it may not be true for you.” Instead, the Apostles presented a direct and powerful spiritual and intellectual challenge.
God commissioned the Apostle Paul to take the gospel to the pagan Gentile world. This was not without great physical danger and required enormous spiritual and intellectual exertion. One of the main urban centers of the Asia Minor was the notoriously wicked port city of Corinth. We read that as Paul considered going to Corinth that “ the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, "Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city." And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them (Acts 18:9-11).
The fact that the Lord appeared to Paul in a vision to encourage him meant that he was genuinely afraid. There is some consolation in knowing that even the Apostles could be intimidated. So, Jesus promises Paul His presence and protection. We can be sure that Christ is with us when we proclaim and defend His gospel.
Paul went on to be successful in his ministry to Corinth because Christ already had “many people” ready to receive the gospel. So Paul boldly proclaimed Christ crucified and risen from the dead with great authority and affect.
But rather than trying to show that the gospel was able to be assimilated into a pagan world view or added on to the vain philosophies of men, Paul confronted them as intellectually and spiritually bankrupt. In one of the great intellectual challenges of all time, Paul asks the Corinthians,
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Cor. 1:20-25).
Even the greatest philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, had left them in intellectual and moral darkness. The whole house built by human philosophy had to be razed and its foundations destroyed because it was built on the shifting sands of man’s fallen and finite imagination. God’s revelation in the face of Jesus Christ must supplant the “wisdom of this world.”
Of course, this can only happen if God the Holy Spirit opens our eyes. The worldly man hates the call to acknowledge their sin and turn from it to God through Christ. “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor 2:14).”
Even though the greatest non-Christian philosopher is unable to account for their views, the proud sinner will still deny the self-evident truth of Christianity in spite of a lack of evidence against it (John 1:5). The unregenerate man refuses to believe, not because Christianity is untrue, but because their deeds are wicked (John 3:19). Their minds are in a constant state of enmity with God (Rom 8:7).
So, unbelief is both intellectual and moral suicide, an act of defiance against God. This is done in spite of the facts unbelievers know (Rom 1:21) and even though there is no reasonable alternative to Christianity. Therefore, unbelievers are without excuse (Rom 1:20), having suppressed the truth in unrighteousness.
CONCLUSION Preaching the gospel and defending the Christian faith is a duty and glorious privilege. While it can be intimidating at times, it is also easy. We minister in the full assurance of the absolute truthfulness of the Gospel and the bankruptcy of every other position, knowing that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:3).”
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