A friend named Mike gave me a book by a famous author. The book is primarily about sanctification. However, it touches on evangelism, since those who follow Christ should freely evangelize all who will listen.
The author follows a tradition of Christian thought called Keswick (pronounced keh-zick) theology. It is also known as Higher Life theology.
In 2016, Shawn Lazar and I spoke at a conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. One of the other speakers was a leading Keswick pastor from Canada. We had supper with him one night. I remember being impressed with how confident this man was in his convictions.
Keswick theology teaches that believers need a second blessing, a second work of grace, in order to be set free from sin’s bondage.i The author of this book wrote, “You need a deeper work of grace than simply a transaction that gets you out of hell and into heaven.”ii
He also wrote about what we need to do in order to “get out of hell and into heaven.” He indicated that we need to be convicted that we are “guilty sinner[s]” and that “the precious blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin” (p. 59). Then we need to “deliberately receive Him as [our] personal Redeemer and put [our] trust in Him” (pp. 59-60). He repeated the expression receiving Him elsewhere. To be born again, he said you need to “receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Redeemer” (p. 143). After WW2, the author led a German young man to Christ: “We prayed together, and he received Jesus Christ” (p. 154).
While he misses the bullseye in evangelism—that is, believing in Jesus for everlasting life—what he is saying is Free-Grace friendly. But what really struck me about his understanding of evangelism is his insistence that our Christlike lives are crucial to evangelism. He wrote:
You and I are always, twenty-four hours a day, in the business of evangelism, as we allow the Lord Jesus to clothe His Deity with our humanity so that others can meet the Man called Jesus in us” (p. 151, italics his).
He continued:
Only when your quality of life baffles your neighbors are you likely to get their attention. It must be patently obvious to them that the kind of life you are living is not only commendable, but beyond all human explanation (p. 152).
Several pages later, he delivered the coup de grace:
The greatest single contribution you can make to those around you—your friends and your family—is that they should recognize in you the Man called Jesus, through all that you do and say and are, and even by the look on your face and the tone of your voice. That is evangelism (p. 155).
That is evangelism? I could not disagree more. If I could evangelize only those who saw the life of Jesus in me, I would not be evangelizing anyone. I fall short of the glory of God every day (Rom 3:23). I am never without sin (1 John 1:8, 10). I may be more like Christ today than in the past, but I still have light years to go before I will be like Him (Phil 3:12-14; 1 John 3:2).
Most of us would never evangelize if we thought our lives had to be so exemplary that anyone looking at us could see that our lives were “beyond all human explanation.”
Worse yet, even if you were like Moses and had a face that glowed, you could only evangelize someone by explicitly sharing the message of life with them. Leading them in a prayer to “receive Christ” will not result in someone’s being born again. Only if they believe in Him for the gift of God, everlasting life, will they be born again (John 4:10, 14).
I’m not suggesting that our lifestyles are totally irrelevant in evangelism. A believer in the spiritual far country, like the prodigal son, would be far less likely to share his faith than a spiritual believer who has been walking in the light for years. And, yes, people might be more likely to listen to a spiritual believer than a carnal one.iii But as we used to say in Campus Crusade for Christ, no one will ever come to faith by observing your life. We must explicitly tell them the message of life.
Keep grace in focus, and your evangelism will be spot on.
i The Lord and His apostles taught that the moment one believes in Jesus, he is positionally set free from sin’s bondage (John 8:24, 30-32; Rom 6:18, 22). No second work of grace is needed.
ii Major Ian Thomas, The Indwelling Life of Christ, p. 147.
iii I say might be because some unbelievers are more likely to listen to a carnal believer than a spiritual one. At the Daytona Regional Conference with Cru, there used to be a guy who would go to parties with a bottle of Coke in a plain paper bag. He would sip on his “drink” as he evangelized people who were getting drunk. They were comfortable listening to him because he was presumably one of them.
