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Our Evangelistic Strategy is Guided by the Nature of Faith By Jay Wegter I. Scripture reveals the nature of faith and the condition of the heart. A.
Scripture never describes the heart of the unbeliever in a favorable
light. The Word of God depicts unbelief as an
expression of the moral state of the inward
man. In order for faith to germinate in
the heart of a man, there must be a moral
change in the heart (John 8:43-45; 1 Cor. 2:14; Ez. 36:26,27; Luke
18:26,27). B.
An understanding of the nature of faith is essential in shaping
the method by which the
sinner’s need is addressed. 1.
Is the issue of unbelief a matter of rebellion, or lack of data, or both?
Scripture affirms that it is rebellion.
The sinner is already hostile to the light he has been given – the
suppression of God’s truth has been his
practice, prior to hearing the truth of the gospel (Rom. 1:18-23). 2. Only a moral change of heart can reverse
this (Matt 12:33). C.
In his book, Always Ready, Greg Bahnsen notes that Scripture
gives us numerous descriptions of a fool. When the Bible speaks of a fool, it does not
refer to a dimwitted buffoon. The
biblical meaning of a fool has to do
with the person whose unbelief is expressed as disregard for God and His
truth. 1.
The fool is characterized by self trust – this is why he lacks
wisdom. He has forsaken God, the only
source of true wisdom. 2.
The fool relies upon his own (allegedly) self-sufficient intellectual
powers. He thinks that his mind can
operate effectively without being informed by Scripture. As a result, he is not teachable (Prov.
1:7;10:8; 15:5; 1 Cor. 1:20). [1] 3.
From God’s omniscient perspective, the fool lives a life of vanity and
folly. The fool is his own worst enemy,
he opposes himself by rejecting God, the source of life. (By rejecting God’s offer of life and
forgiveness, the fool makes a choice for his own destruction, thus he proves to
be hostile to his own eternal welfare.)
4.
Jesus alluded to the fool’s value system when He said, “For what will a
man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew
16:26). D. The biblical fool may have a normal
intellect, but he is characterized by the misuse of his intellect. The following thought behaviors are descriptive of the fool: 1.)
He avoids the topic of his creaturehood and origin. He operates from a position of
“non-createdness.” 2.)
He does not distinguish between his own thoughts and God’s thoughts. 3.)
He views himself as the ultimate authority for determining truth. 4.)
He attributes God’s attributes to himself (as if he, the finite creature,
has the power, unaided by Scripture, to answer ultimate questions and uncover
universal truth by the use of autonomous reason). 5.)
He denies God’s authority and absolute claims upon his life. 6.)
He says in his heart, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). E.
The biblical fool does not make God and His revelation the starting point
in his thinking. Therefore, in his
reasoning, he is antagonistic toward God.
In his mind, he is an enemy of God because he uses his God-given
intellect to obviate the Holy Scriptures (Col. 1:21; James 4:4; Mark 7:8-13).[2] 1.
Man’s break from God ethically, was also a break from God intellectually.
God bears witness in the Scriptures
as to the nature of man’s fallen intellect (Romans 1:18-23; Eph. 2:3; 4:17,18). 2.
When fallen man regards himself as the ultimate reference point, he puts
himself in a position to not understand God’s truth (Romans
3:10,11). (Since his heart is in a
state of enmity against God, he is in no position to independently verify
divine truth.)[3] 3.
The natural man’s rebellion is seen in his covert enmity toward God’s
claims upon him – though the unbeliever assumes the posture of a “truth-seeker
who lacks data,” he is actually committed to his own independence from
God. (Proofs from the wonders of nature
and the creation will not overcome the unbeliever’s enmity toward God. As long as his core commitment is to
autonomy, he will continue to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.) 4.
Frequently, the unbeliever describes himself as neutral when it
comes to the testimony of Scripture. He
pretends to be objective. The Bible
exposes this as a façade. For God’s
claims upon a man eliminate every notion of neutral ground. There is no neutral spot in the universe and
there is not a single rational creature in the universe who is neutral (the two
orders of rational creatures are men and angels). 5.
The Creator will not leave a man’s imagined autonomy in tact – instead
God in His Word, confronts it head on and exposes it as rebellion.[4]
II. When considering absolute truth, there are
only two philosophies. A.
The first philosophy is what the Bible commends as genuine faith. It submits to the authority of God’s Word –
this submission involves a presuppositional commitment to the veracity
of the Scriptures. 1. The faith
of Abraham perfectly illustrates this confidence in the reliability of God’s
Word – Romans 4:14-22; Hebrews 11:8-10, 17-19.) 2.
God and His Word are self-authenticating. God doesn’t go outside Himself to define,
understand or present Himself. There is no truth standard outside of God. There is no truth “magnifying glass” large
enough to place over God and His authoritative Word -- every imaginable
scholastic discipline is but a “particular.” Only God is the concrete universal absolute. 3.
Without God’s ultimate truth, man attempts to create his own
reality. Such an attempt moves man from
reason to irrationality. Ultimate truth
cannot be argued independently of the preconditions inherent in it. One might as well say, “Let’s stop breathing
oxygen while we debate the necessity of that gas.” The only way we know anything with certainty is by God’s
authoritative revelation - Psalm 36:9.)[5] B.
The second of the two philosophies is the commitment to self
as the ultimate authority. 1. As a
result of mankind’s fall into sin, there is a universal commitment to self
as the ultimate starting point for all knowledge. 2. The
debate between the two philosophies is over ultimate authority. Where
does the ultimate authority reside?
Does it reside in God or in man? 3. Jesus Christ is God’s reference point for man
(Col. 2:3). He is the source of
absolute truth and He is the source of ultimate
answers to ultimate questions. III. Because the two competing philosophies constitute a clash between sources of ultimate authority, they totally condition the process of interpreting facts. A.
These competing philosophic systems govern a man’s philosophy of facts. Every person interprets facts according to
one of these two philosophic systems. 1. When the natural man is confronted with the
witness of God in
creation, he studiously suppresses the truth or holds it down by
means of
false interpretation. His use of
autonomous reason as the starting
point means that he will be an untruthful interpreter. 2. Man’s consciousness is a covenant
consciousness. In other words, God placed man on this planet to be a steward over
the works of His hands (Psalm 8). 3. That stewardship involves covenant
obligations – the Creator’s
ownership is upon man, for man is the “image-bearer” of God. This is an
immense privilege – man has a great purpose because he is created for a great
task. Central to this covenant
responsibility is man’s calling to be a
truthful interpreter of God, creation and humanity (Genesis 1-2).[6] 4. Scripture proclaims that God’s attributes,
power and divine nature are clearly seen, yet the natural
man interprets these facts of
creation untruthfully. He
resorts to speculation and futility of mind and
becomes a fool as a consequence.
Man’s unbelief in God’s Word issues
forth in disobedience to covenant obligations. 5. The Scripture says that unbeliever is
without a defense (Greek,
apologia) or without excuse before God (Romans 1:18-23). They have no excuse because God
has clearly shown Himself to mankind. 6. Remember, one’s world view is
inseparable from one’s theory of knowledge. The natural man “worships” his own mind as
ultimate; he has a theory of knowledge that exalts autonomous
reason. As a consequence, he rebels
against God’s authoritative revelation.
His world view reflects his commitment to think independently of God. B.
According to God’s Word, human reason is to be the servant of
divine revelation. 1. Reason is a faculty designed by God for the
task of interpreting truthfully. The divine mandate of interpreting
truthfully can only be fulfilled when man is in
submission to the Word of God, thinking God’s thoughts after
Him.[7]
2. When men reject the
Word of God, their interpreting will always be
false. The refusal to follow
God’s truth will lead a man into error in all
fields of thought. (An erroneous
starting point necessarily leads to erroneous conclusions
concerning the origin and meaning of every fact in the universe.) 3. When men interpret falsely it is because
they have regarded their reason
to be an independent and neutral faculty, not the servant of divine
revelation. C. God’s Word puts the sinner’s intellectual
assumption of autonomous reason
on trial. Holy Scripture turns the
tables on the unbelieving
sinner. Though unbelievers talk
as if God and His revelation are on trial, the
Word of God places the sinner’s errant heart on trial. The divine
arraignment of the sinner is cast in a fourteen point indictment
found in Romans 3:10-18: “There is none righteous,
not even one; There is none who
understands, There is none who seeks
for God; All have turned aside,
together they have become useless; There is none who does
good, There is not even one.” “Their throat is an open
grave, With their tongues they
keep deceiving,” “The poison of asps is
under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of
cursing and bitterness”; “Their feet are swift to
shed blood’ Destruction and misery are
in their paths, And the path of peace they
have not known.” “There is no fear of God
before their eyes.” D.
God’s indictment of Adam’s sinful race reveals why no man can reason his way to God. Man’s mind is not neutral, but in
rebellion. The natural man uses his mind to sin
against God. (God has endowed man with the gift of
reason and logic in order to receive
divine revelation. The independent exercise of
reason will always
result
in erroneous interpretation.) IV. Without reverence and faith, there is no understanding of God and all He has made. A. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
knowledge; fools despise wisdom
and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7). (Those
who fear God are in
awe of His sovereignty. They
maintain a deep reverence for the His unbreakable Word.) B. Faith in God is NOT based upon autonomous
proofs that satisfy our intellects. 1. God
demands faith in His Messianic Son (John 6:28,29).[8] There is NO knowledge of spiritual things until
a person has savingly believed
upon Christ. For Christ is God’s
authoritative Interpreter put over man as sovereign
Lord. 2. Rejection
of Christ is rejection of God the Son as Interpreter of the world (Christ has absolute epistemic authority in
all fields of knowledge – Col. 2:3). 3. When man arrogates to himself the position of
epistemic
authority, he defies God’s authority and God’s appointed
Representative, Jesus Christ (Phil. 2:9-11; Ps. 2). (The field of epistemology
concerns the origin, validity and structure of knowledge – it deals with
how we know what we know with
certainty.) C.
Faith therefore has a moral basis – it reveals what is in the heart of a
man. 1. When a
man’s heart is wrong in the sight of God, his thinking will correspondingly be futile. Unbelief is not an error in judgment, unbelief is the fruit of a
heart in rebellion against God (Heb. 3:12).
The opposite of truth is
not ignorance, but rebellion.[9]
2. Jesus
declared that the means by which a person knows and
understands spiritual truth with certainty is by being willing to do God’s
will (John
7:17).[10] According to the Son of God, understanding is the reward of faith. 3. As long
as a man uses his depraved intellect to “put God on trial,” (or judge God), he cannot know
or understand God. Human reason cannot
be the support of faith, for the object and source
of faith is God and His revelation (Rom. 10:17). V. Man cannot reason his way to God. Genuine faith does not depend upon what
it sees, but upon the self- attesting veracity of God’s Word (Heb. 11:1-6). Faith submits to the dependability of Holy Scripture (2 Tim.
3:16,17). [11] A.
There can be no “flat line” reasoning to God. There are two important reasons for this.
First, when one argues for an ultimate intellectual criterion, circularity in reasoning will be
unavoidable. Every world view and every argument must have a starting point that
is unquestioned, authoritative and self-authenticating. 1. Without
this ultimate starting point, facts will be unrelated and
“brutish,” (isolated, without interpretation by a universal). (One
cannot
even begin to evaluate the very first fact he encounters without
a set of non-negotiable presuppositions about knowledge and the
universe in general.) 2. Every
world view or philosophy of necessity must use its own standard
of truth
to prove its conclusions. There is no
standard for truth that sits above the
Scriptures and there is no fact in the universe
more certain than the Scriptures. 3. The Bible
believing Christian affirms that there are no neutral facts that hold an authority independent of a
scriptural interpretation. “They are
God’s facts. And they are to be interpreted according to God’s Word.”[12] 4. Reason
either begins with God or self. Reason
that begins with God
involves thought dependent upon God’s revelation. Reason that begins
with self assumes the false presupposition that man’s mind is
ultimate. B.
Second, those who come to know God have had a radical overturning of their presuppositions about
autonomous reason. The ability to understand God is stipulated upon faith. Faith is the soul’s “abandonment” of itself to God and His Word. Thus the only way to know God is by forsaking one’s independent thinking
about God. This is the very opposite
of attempting to reason in a “flat line” manner. C.
God commands unbelievers to renounce their antagonistic reasoning and
to embrace a new system of thought (John 8:24). 1.
Repentance (which always accompanies genuine faith) involves radical abandonment of
autonomous world views and independent thinking about God. 2. Where
there is true faith and repentance, there is a submission to the
mind of God and a new commitment to think God’s thoughts after
Him. The renewed mind embraces an
entirely new epistemology in which
Christ and His Word are the final reference point and authority
for knowing (1 Cor. 2:14-16). 3.
Repentance puts a halt to man’s judging God – it terminates a man’s
commitment to think “ultimately” (or with autonomous
reason). Repentance by means of
God’s authoritative truth mortifies the natural man’s view of
self. It destroys his
presuppositions of ultimate thinking.
It brings to bear the full weight
of God’s claims upon him.[13] 4.
There is a self-renouncing character to saving faith – it looks away
from itself to God as the source of truth and life. Thus faith cannot be grounded in man’s
self-reliant thinking – in true
repentance, the final reference
point and starting point shift from self
to God (Phil. 3:3; Jer. 17:5;
Prov. 28:26; 1 Cor. 2:4,5). VI. The point of contact of God and His truth with sinful man is at the point of man’s
rebellion.[14] A.
Though the sinner is commanded to seek God, he cannot take a
step in God’s
direction without divine assistance (John 6:44,45; Is. 55:1- 11). When
the sinner cries to God for mercy, he is also pleading for the
ability to come to God, believe and be saved (Luke 18:13). 1. God makes
Himself known to the unbeliever by FIRST setting forth
the man’s predicament. His habitual
breaking of God’s law, his
ill-desert, his legal guilt and his moral failure must be stated. When the
Holy Spirit brings conviction of sin, He “shows the sinner his
chains and the weight of his guilt.” 2. Men are not
ready for the good news of the gospel UNTIL their
consciences have been educated concerning the seriousness of God’s claims
upon them (Gal. 3:23,24; John 16:13). 3. Man’s
spiritual apathy constitutes rebellion.
Man’s apathy is a symptom
of a heart dead to the things of God.
The Scriptures state that the solution to man’s
spiritual deadness is the vivifying power of Jesus Christ (Eph.
2:1-5):[15] “And you were dead in trespasses and sins, in which
you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons
of disobedience. Among them we too all
formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh
and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His
great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our
transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been
saved)…” 4. Christ is
God’s comprehensive answer to man’s predicament. God commands
sinners to appeal to Christ for a new
heart of faith and
repentance. Man’s number one
duty is to come to Christ and be forgiven
(Rev. 22:17). B.
The unbeliever’s arguments sound “rational” until he is taken back to
his world view and presuppostional starting point.[16] At that juncture, his system falls apart – man’s existence in order to
be meaningful cannot be grounded upon chaos, chance and absurdity. 1. Even
unbelievers presuppose theism in order to reason at all. There are
certain “preconditions” of knowledge that only an almighty Creator
can supply. 2. These
preconditions include the following: God knows all things
exhaustively, God is the concrete universal that unites all particulars,
God’s
control over the universe is manifested in the uniformity of nature, God is
the source of morals, God is the source of logic, God supplies the categories
of knowledge, God has interpreted all things, God answers every
ultimate question, God rules the universe according to His purpose and plan. 3. Without
these preconditions of knowledge, man is unable to predicate
anything. He is adrift upon a
sea of epistemological despair –
certainty and rationality are ever out of reach. Man can only retreat into solipsism
(solipsism is the theory that the self is the only thing that can
be known and verified – self is the only reality).[17] 4. “When one
willingly limits his faith, presuming to question the ability or truth
of God based upon human intellect or argumentation, it is a serious
provocation before the Lord – e.g., Psalm 78:18-22” (Greg Bahnsen,
Always Ready, p. 93). 5.
A universe without God’s sovereign moral authority and rule is a universe
based upon chance. The natural man
clings to chance in order to
escape the claims of God. To opt for a
chance universe is to reject
the God of the Bible.[18] 6. The
natural man’s theory of knowledge is synonymous with his world
view. Since the unbeliever
trusts in the ultimacy of his own mind, he
correspondingly rejects the authority of God’s Word. His world view is necessarily
constructed so as to invalidate God’s claims upon the
creature. 7. God’s
almighty control of all things is manifested in His preservation of His
Word, the Bible. In a universe where
chance is ultimate, the Word of
God is necessarily falsified by man.
Thus, chance destroys the
infallibility of the Scriptures and the Gospel. (The unbeliever’s system
of thought is internally rotten. He
cannot have it both ways – he
cannot have rational universe and at the same time, have a universe
based upon chance. Reason is slain on
the altar of chance. The God
of the Bible is the precondition of knowledge and rationality.) C. The
nature of biblical faith governs our apologetic method. The nature of belief must guide our
strategy when defending the faith and evangelizing the lost. As a result, we never hold the ultimate authority of God’s Word in abeyance
for the sake of neutrality amidst argumentation. 1. When defending
the faith, we do not appeal to autonomous empirical “sight,”
instead, we proclaim the a priori Word of God.[19]
2. Man is
utterly dependent upon God for existence and meaning. We are
God’s thought and creation, upheld and sustained by Him every moment
(Col. 1:16,17; Acts 17:24-27). 3. It is
absolutely impossible to find a vantage point that is neutral,
objective and autonomous from which to scrutinize God and His
Word. There is never a moment
when the claims of the Creator are not
resting upon the creature. 4. When men
pretend to operate from a neutral vantage point, they are in
reality revealing a heart full of revolt against God. Their greatest need is
not a superior vantage point, it is repentance and faith toward God. Endnotes [1] Greg L. Bahnsen, Always
Ready, (American Vision, Atlanta, 1996) 55. [2] Ibid., pp. 65-67. [3] James F. Stitzinger, Apologetics
and Evangelism TH 701, (Syllabus from The Master’s Seminary, Sun Valley, CA
copyright 1999) 84,85. [4] Ibid., pp. 84,85. [5] Greg L. Bahnsen, Always
Ready, pp. 66-68. [6] Cornelius Van Til, The
Defense of the Faith, (Presbyterian and Reformed, Phillipsburg, 1955)
90-95. [7] James F. Stitzinger, Apologetics
and Evangelism, p. 17. [8] Greg L. Bahnsen, Always
Ready, pp. 87,88. [9] Ibid., p. 88. [10] Tom Wells, The Moral
Basis of Faith, (The Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, 1986) 9-11. [11] Greg L. Bahnsen, Always
Ready, p. 89. [12] Michael J. Kruger, “The
Sufficiency of Scripture in Apologetics” in The Master’s Seminary Journal, (12:1,
Spring 2001) 70, 81,82. [13] James F. Stitzinger, Syllabus, p. 89. [14] Ibid., p. 104. [15] Ibid., p. 103. [16] Ibid., pp. 58,99,101,113. [17] Greg L. Bahnsen, A
Critique of the Evidentialist Apologetical Method of John Warwick Montgomery, pp.
5,11. [18] Cornelius Van Til, The
Defense of the Faith, pp. 140-150. [19] Greg L. Bahnsen, Always
Ready, pp. 91-93. |
