Un-compromising the message of the cross

by Dr Leong Tien Fock

Christ as presented in John 3:16 is often compared with the cure for cancer. Not sharing Christ is then considered as cruel as not sharing the cure for cancer. This comparison certainly evokes a sense of responsibility to evangelize. For Christ is indeed the cure for spiritual cancer, which leads to eternal death. But we must be careful how we apply the comparison. Otherwise it will more likely just inflict guilt rather than inspire zeal for evangelism.

Generally speaking, one will not hesitate to share the cure for cancer unless he is indeed cruel. And there is no need to be creative in how to share it. For the patient will be most eager to hear it. But what if there are people who do not believe there is such a thing as cancer and are offended if we say that they might be afflicted with such a deadly disease? Will we still have no hesitation to talk about the cure for cancer?

In contemporary society many people do not believe in heaven, let alone hell. So they do not believe in any spiritual cancer that leads to eternal death. And they are offended when we say otherwise. This is not to say we do not evangelize such people. It shows that we cannot apply the comparison indiscriminately.

Consider further the question of what can be accepted as a cure for cancer. Suppose you have a friend who is undergoing medical treatment for cancer. He considers alternative medicine sheer nonsense. If you heard from what you consider reliable sources that a certain herb has cured people of cancer, will you be as eager to share it to him as you would to someone who believes in herbal medicine? And what if this herb is said to be effective only when the patient stops all other treatments?

Yet this is precisely what we tell people when we share Christ as the (only and exclusive) cure for spiritual cancer. Furthermore even religious people who believe in sin and hell are often offended by the idea that Christ is the only way. So we need to be creative in evangelism, but without compromising the message of the Cross. How do we do that? Let us first consider the basic stumbling block a sinner has to overcome before he can truly become a Christian. (This is also the major stumbling block facing a Christian if he wants to preach Christ and Him crucified without compromise.)

A potential Christian must recognize that he is a sinner condemned to hell and be repentant. For otherwise the gracious salvation offered in John 3:16 is not yet relevant to him; and if he "makes a decision to accept Christ" he is likely doing it for the wrong reason and his conversion is suspect. So he must somehow be confronted with the offending truth that he has sinned against God and that unless he repents of his sins he remains condemned to hell. Unless one has already been convicted of this truth by the Holy Spirit, our efforts to win him to Christ will likely need to involve offending (disturbing) him. We therefore need to be creative so that we do this without being offensive (causing resentment).

Consider how Paul confronted his idolatrous audience with the sin of idolatry and the need to repent to escape hell (Acts 17:22-23). He began by commending their religiosity, thus putting them at ease. He then used one of their altars, one with the inscription "TO AN UNKNOWN GOD," to point them to the Creator God. Paul was aware that human beings, whether they worship many gods or claim that there is no God, know something about the Creator; but they have, to different degrees, suppressed this knowledge (Rom 1:18-23). So Paul creatively used something from their own religious practices to tap into this innate but suppressed knowledge.

He then elaborated on it by appealing to their own poets and their common sense. He reasoned with them that the Creator could not possibly be worshiped as idols. This implied that though they were very religious they had failed to worship the only true God. Since this idea is only implied it is not offensive, though still offending.

Having thus set the stage, he was able to make the offending, but still not offensive, statement: "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."

To avoid being offensive Paul made the legitimate concession that they had worshiped idols out of ignorance, and that God had overlooked their ignorance until then. This implied the offending idea that their idolatry had all along been sin, which they needed to repent of. The concession is legitimate because they were indeed ignorant-willfully ignorant through suppressing the truth. In Romans 1, Paul stressed the "willful" part; here in Acts 17, the "ignorant" part. And because they were willfully ignorant the Holy Spirit can use the offending words to convict them of willful sin so that they would become repentant.

Paul also presented the most offending idea of the Gospel-without Christ they will go to hell for their sins-in a non-offensive way. He does this by focusing not on God's impending judgment but on His care for people everywhere in warning them to repent so that they might escape hell. By adding that God will judge the world through the resurrected Christ, Paul is implying that without God's forgiveness through Christ we would not escape hell. Paul did not use the word "hell" but his premodern audience knew he was referring to it.

Modern people may mock at the idea of hell. But deep in their hearts they not only know that the Creator exists but also that they have sinned against His commandments, and that their sins are punishable by death (Rom 1:32; 2:14-16). Though suppressed, this knowledge will somehow surface, perhaps even in a distorted form, in their own culture. So like Paul in Acts 17, we can creatively use what is relevant in their own culture to tap into their innate knowledge. Having done that, we do not need to use the offensive word "hell" or even "judgment" and yet share the same offending idea. We just need to say that if we do not repent of our sins and receive forgiveness through faith in Christ, we will have to bear the consequences ourselves.

Hence the key to presenting an uncompromising and thus offending, but not offensive, message of the Cross is to find a creative way to tap into the sinner's innate knowledge of God, His commandments, sin and the final judgment. What Paul did in Acts 17 is only one way.

Dr Leong Tien Fock is Research coordinator of Malaysia Campus Crusade for Christ.