As we lamented yesterday, there is a crisis in modern evangelicalism. Many professing Christians are living no differently from the rest of the world. How have we come to this point? What has caused this separation between what so many people say with their mouths as opposed to their live? Ronadl J. Sider offers some thoughts in his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? Sider claims that:

“Close to the center of the problem is a cluster of unbiblical ideas and practices that amount to what Dietrich Bonhoffer called “cheap grace.” Cheap grace results when we reduce the gospel to forgiveness of sins; limit salvation to personal fire insurance against hell; misunderstand persons as primarily souls; at best, grasp only half of what the Bible says about sin; embrace the individualism, materialism, and relativism of our current culture; lack a biblical understanding and practice of the church; and fail to teach a biblical worldview.”

How often have you heard the Gospel presented merely in terms of forgiveness of sins? While it is this, it is certainly more than this. Rarely do we hear about the drastic lifechange that accompanies this forgiveness. Rarely do we hear about the new birth accompanied by the new growth. We often hear only have of John 3:36 quoted: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.” Yet the whole verse reads:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Notice that John not only mentions belief but obedience as part of salvation. Too many presentations of the Gospel focus on the benefit without the cost. They focus on the reward without noting the life-style change (repentance) that accompanies it. In other words, far too many presentations of the Gospel are deficient and may in fact, not be the entire Gospel. As Sider points out:

“If all there is to accepting the gospel is receiving the forgiveness of sins, one can accept the gospel, become a Christian, and then go on living the same adulterous, materialistic, racist life that one lived before. Salvation becomes, not a life-transforming experience that reorients every corner of life, but a one-way ticket to heaven, and one can live like hell until one gets there.”

In fact, this is far too often what we actually find. We must return to the two-fold truth of the Gospel. Not only is the Gospel justification, it is also sanctification and true justification always leads to sanctification. We cannot give credence to claims of salvation that are not accompanied by any significant life-changes. While our obedience does not merit anything before God, our lives are often our most powerful apologetics before others.

• Read The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like The Rest of the World? by Ronald J. Sider
• Read The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith by Alan Wolfe

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed