The previous key for effective evangelism that I gave in this series was to “make much of Jesus Christ”. That is absolutely foundational. However, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. By saying that, I am not saying that we should always start our presentation of the Gospel by talking about the cross. Sometimes that is certainly appropriate –to start with a confrontation with the truth of the cross and reason across a long line of other related biblical and salvific truths as they relate to the cross and to the sinner’s current state before God, exhorting the sinner to embrace this truth as we lay out the claims of the Gospel before their eyes in living color. This can be especially true when evangelizing people who already claim a “Christian” worldview since they already assume (at least intellectually) the truth of the cross. We must imitate Paul, who determined to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified. If Christ is not our message than our message is void of power to save. Yet, while to be faithful in evangelism we must exalt and proclaim Jesus Christ, at the same time, we must not shrink from declaring “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). This means it isn’t always appropriate to begin with Jesus Christ or with the cross in our presentation of the Gospel. In fact, more often than not, I will dare to say we shouldn’t begin by talking about Christ. We should begin with the basic foundational truths which constitute the hinges upon which the door of understanding the Gospel swings. Far too many modern evangelists begin immediately with the cross and preach forgiveness to sinners who don’t even recognize, feel, or even hunger and thirst for righteousness from God. The Gospel is not just forgiveness in Jesus. It is a revelation of God and His glory, His righteousness, His attributes, and His saving power. Our presentation of the Gospel must include enough truth about God so as to be likely to be used by God as an instrument through which He reveals Himself by the power of His Spirit in a personal and confrontational way to the sinner. If our presentation of the Gospel is just an offer of forgiveness and eternal happiness but fails to be a revelation of God, it is faulty, broken down, and will hardly be able to function in order to perform its intended purpose in being used by God to secure the salvation of souls.
The apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans serves as an excellent example of explaining the Gospel by declaring the whole counsel of God. It is the clearest systematic explanation of the theology of the Gospel in the whole Bible. Every Christian should be intimately familiar with this book. This should be even truer among those who are regularly and actively involved in evangelistic ministry. I recommend that every Christian who is active in sharing the Gospel spend at least one month straight in the book of Romans. Read it through every day. Meditate on its flow of thought. Pour over it on your knees begging God for light from above. Memorize key verses. Cry out to God continually to burn it into your soul. Listen to solid expository sermons through the book.[i] I can guarantee that when you are utterly saturated with the theology of the book of Romans, and its penetratingly glorious truth has penetrated your soul and floored you with the depths of the riches of the Gospel, it will be exceedingly difficult to preach a half a gospel as so many are doing in modern evangelistic ministries.
The thesis statement of the whole book is found in the first chapter: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith." (Rom. 1:16-17) Notice how the apostle begins by stating that the power of God almighty that results in salvation is contained in the Gospel. That means if we modify it, water it down, or adulterate it in any way, we are stripping the Gospel of its power to save. We must preach it biblically. Anything less than a biblical Gospel will result in something less than a revelation of the biblical God, which will result in something less than biblical salvation.
After announcing what the Gospel does and how it does it (i.e. it saves by the power of God), Paul summarizes what the Gospel is all about. It is the revelation of the righteousness of God. The issue here is not merely life-fulfillment, worldly contentment, or a nice happy life. The issue is righteousness –and not just any righteousness, but the very righteousness of the most holy, perfect and glorious God.
The argument continues: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Rom. 1:18-20) In saying this, the apostle contrasts the righteousness of God with the ungodliness and unrighteousness of man. He mentions God’s attributes and how He has revealed His glory and power through creation, and yet man has rejected and suppressed the general revelation of God by his love for sin, thus provoking and deserving God’s holy, hot and burning wrath.
So the Gospel starts with God, His glory (as revealed in His attributes), and His righteousness. It then considers man in the sight of this perfect God, being sinful, rebellious, utterly depraved, and void of anything that is truly morally good. The argument of Romans proceeds throughout the rest of chapters one, two, and the better part of three, to present God’s case against the depravity and guilt of mankind as a master attorney would put forth his arguments against a guilty criminal being tried for capital offenses. The apostle opens up the law and shows how mankind has raped it and put God to open shame, concluding with the thunderous indictment that the whole world is guilty before God and accountable to His judgment (Rom. 3:19).
Yet he doesn’t leave us without hope. He explains that all the righteousness we are void of by nature, which we need to be reconciled to this holy God, is found in the Savior Jesus Christ. Christ’s death satisfied God’s wrath against sin because it satisfied the demands of His justice. We violated God’s Law, and Jesus Christ suffered the capital punishment in our place. His blood satisfied the just punitive vengeance of God so that God could freely forgive us by His grace. The condition of receiving this gift of salvation is faith in Jesus Christ. All this is summed up in Romans 3:23-26 and then expounded on in greater detail in the remainder of chapter 3 and in chapters 4-5. Then Paul goes on to explain that the very grace that forgives us by the blood of the Savior also transforms us by the power of the Holy Spirit by virtue of our union by faith into the death of Jesus Christ, thus those who are recipients of God’s grace have been transformed and set free from the reigning power of sin and the condemnation of the Law (chapters 6-8a).
We must follow suit and present our case when pleading with sinners according to the whole counsel of God. Mankind is on death row for having committed capital offenses against the divine Judge but is blind to his true plight. We must expound on the nature and character of God, magnify His glory, exalt His righteousness, and by the use of the Law (or the moral principles contained in the Law) show sinners that they are stripped, helpless, and unable to do anything to save themselves or contribute to their own salvation by their contaminated works (which they think are good but are in reality just as abominable to a holy God as the sinful heart from which they spring). We must reason with them of sin (their personal guilt), righteousness (God’s perfect standard) and judgment (how they deserve divine wrath). From there, we must move on to the cross and glory in it exceedingly, explaining how the cross is the vindication of God’s offended justice, how it satisfies the demands of God’s law, how it propitiates God’s wrath, how it demonstrates God’s love, and how through the cross and resurrection salvation was secured to be given as a gift of grace to those who trust in Christ alone. Therefore, the guilty sinner can receive the perfect righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ and can be justified (declared forgiven and accredited with the righteousness of Christ in order to be placed in a right-standing with God) and receive eternal life. True faith in Christ will result in a radical break with sin and a new style of life of continual and increasing obedience to the will of God.
This is an extremely condensed and brief overview of the flow of thought in Romans. It is by no means exhaustive and this is certainly not everything we should ever preach when we proclaim the Gospel. We haven’t even mentioned some extremely important truths such as how the active obedience of Christ relates the imputation of His righteousness to the sinner, or of regeneration, for instance, which are definitely alluded to in the book Romans in its declaration of the Gospel. However, if our customary presentation of the Gospel does not at least generally present these truths to the people who hear us, it is doubtful we can be said to be declaring the whole counsel of God as it relates to the salvation of sinners.
This does not mean that we must explain all of these things every time we share the Gospel. Sometimes we only have time to give out a tract and utter just a few words to a passerby in the hope that God will use our witness in spite of its unavoidable brevity. I’ve been in many conversations where as I’m expounding on God’s holiness and the sinfulness of sin, or on the Law of God and the eternal condemnation of sinners, where the conversation is abruptly broken or ended by the hearer or another annoying distraction. In that case, I try to get in at least a very brief explanation of the cross and tell them if they repent and believe they will be saved. I’ve even had several occasions where sinners, upon understanding their guilt before God and being terror stricken by the thunderous demands of Sinai’s justice, have literally taken off and fled, running away as fast as they can before I could explain to them the hope of the Gospel. We cannot prevent such things.
Yet the point is that this is not a formula. I am not saying that your presentation of the Gospel must always follow the precise flow of argument presented in Romans. You must be led by the Spirit of God and be constantly asking God for wisdom from above and for a prophetic edge to your Gospel witness. The way you present the Gospel should differ from time to time. If you are always parroting the same thing over and over, and there’s never any spontaneity or freshness in what you say, I’m not sure if you’re being led by the Spirit of God. A survey of the evangelistic sermons of the book of Acts will reveal that the apostles didn’t always say the same exact things when they preached. However, if you do take time to study the short blurbs of their sermons contained in Acts, you will find that all these elements of the Gospel message that Romans explains in detail are alluded to, even if briefly, in the sermons of the apostles in Acts.
We must not preach half of a Gospel. Don’t preach all love and no justice, holiness or wrath. Paul mentions wrath in His Gospel repeatedly (Rom. 1:18, 2:5, 8, 3:5, 3:25, 4:13, 5:9). But at the same time, don’t preach an unbalanced view of God, mentioning only wrath and punishment for sin without magnifying His grace, mercy and love. Paul glories in the love of God as revealed in the Gospel (Rom. 5:5-8). I have seen those who err in preaching all love and no wrath, all forgiveness with no justice, and there are those who react against them by overemphasizing the truths that those people fail to mention, and the result is the very ones who are trying to counter the error of a modern sentimental “gospel” fall into error on the opposite extremes themselves, and thereby fail to present the Gospel hardly at all because they’re too busy pronouncing God’s judgment on doomed impenitents. We must proclaim the full counsel of God, and we must keep Christ and Him crucified as our central focus at all times.
[i] For some solid sermons through Romans, for starters I recommend John Macarthur: http://www.gty.org/resources/Sermons/scripture/Romans;
Steve Lawson: http://www.cfbcmobile.org/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=421&sec_id=377&sa_action=mode_bible&sa_filter=Romans;
D.A. Carson: http://thegospelcoalition.org/index.php?/resources/name-index/a/DA_Carson/scripture/romans;
and John Piper: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/scripture-index/romans.
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