The Judgment Gospel

“I believe that much of our evangelistic and personal work today is not clear simply because we are too anxious to get to the answer without having a man realize the real cause of his sickness, which is true moral guilt (and not just psychological guilt feelings) in the presence of God. But the same is true in a culture. If I am going to speak to a culture, such as my culture, the message must be the message of Jeremiah. It must be the same in both private and public discourse.

With love we must face squarely the fact that our culture really is under the judgment of God. We must not heal the sickness lightly. We must emphasize the reality. We must proclaim the message with tears and give it with love. Through the work of the Holy Spirit there must be a simultaneous exhibition of God’s holiness and His love, as we speak. We cannot shout at them or scream down upon them. They must feel that we are with them, that we are saying that we are both sinners, and they must know that these are not just god-words but that we mean what we say.”

– Francis Schaeffer, Death In The City p.71

How true it is, as Schaeffer says, that we are so over-anxious to tell people the answer! So much so that more often than not we offer Christ to the person before he or she even knows what the question is, much less has a desire to find the answer. It is true in the case of any question; almost no man seeks the answer as an end in itself. No student particularly cares that what the answer is to question 16 on their math final; they care that if they get that question wrong they will be that much closer to failing the class. Even the most inquisitive and competitive person does not seek the answer or the victory as an end in itself. No, they seek it for the satisfaction it gives them, whether that be in winning a spelling bee, defeating an opponent in a boxing match, or graduating top if the class.

Is it not then foolishness to attempt to present the gospel to people before making the need for it clear? As Schaeffer so wisely says, “we must face squarely the fact that our culture is under the judgment of God.” First and foremost, we must come to the realization of this fact; that we as individuals are under God’s condemnation and that our culture, all things that stem from humanity, are also condemned. As Romans declares, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men”. Note the present tense of that statement. The wrath of God is revealed. Not in the fullness of its terror or power, but it is in part now revealed day by day against all the inhabitants of the earth. A few verses later Paul tells us how the wrath of God is shown in the world; “they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened,” and, “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,” and also, “all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.” All of Romans 1:21-32 is Paul’s explication of how the wrath of God is revealed on earth here and now.

I find it a thing hard to grasp in my 21^st century mind that human sin is a part of God’s judgment against us, in fact, if Isaiah, Romans, and the rest of the Bible have any say of it, sin and its disastrous results are the main evidence of God’s wrath being revealed against this earth. We have somehow gained this thought that God will judge our sins at the end of time and that is when His wrath will be shown. Yet what Paul here explains is that the fact that we have been “given up” is in itself an wrathful act.

It is from the basis of that fact; that sin is in the world and that it is evidence (among many others) of God’s wrath against the wickedness of humanity. We must first lay these hard and painful facts out to those who we would share the gospel. As Schaeffer so beautifully explains throughout the rest of Death in the City, our message should be the message of the prophet Jeremiah. A message of wrath and in and through that wrath, a glorious hope. Humanity first needs to realize its wretched state before it can cry, “Praise be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ!” as Paul did in Romans 7.

Yet remember, as is pointed out in the above quote, to do so in love and with humble sincerity. Were we not ourselves under that same wrath not so long ago? Was it not God’s strength and God’s alone – no worth or effort on our part – that saved us? (Romans 9:10-12) It is, “But for the grace of God, there go I.” It is my prayer that we will progressively grow in both courage and love; courage to speak a message that people will perhaps reject us for, and love to yet love those who do as the Jews did to Jeremiah in his day when they held him captive, beat him, and threatened him with death.

Be strong, my brothers and sisters in Christ. We are in a world that is far from the Lord, but the Lord is close to us! May we offer ourselves up as the means by which others are drawn closer to Him.