How will we ever win a lost world with mediocre faith like that?” That is a question a former International Mission Board (IMB) leader frequently asked himself after speaking in Southern Baptist churches across the nation. As he boarded airplanes for flights back to Richmond, Virginia, after speaking about the needs of a lost world, this IMB leader said he often lamented the vitality of the faith evidenced in the congregations he visited.
Could it be that in many Baptist churches the good news has become old hat, something taken for granted? Could it be that many have lost appreciation for what God has done through Jesus Christ? Is it possible we have forgotten what it was like to be “dead in trespasses and sin” and cannot appreciate being “alive in Christ”?
Has Easter become a holiday when social pressures drive people to church or is Easter a time when the reality of life overcoming death breaks out in joy unspeakable?
Death’s victory
After all, Golgotha — the place of the skull — was a testimony to death’s victories. But when Jesus died on Calvary’s cross, He destroyed death on its own territory. He transformed a place of doom into a place where victory is celebrated — His victory and victory for all who believe on the name of the one and only Son of God.
You know the story. God fashioned humanity for a special trusting relationship — a shared experience of fellowship described in the Bible as set in the Garden of Eden. That special trusting relationship is why every person still has an inner-yearning for God.
But Adam wanted to “be like God” and refused to trust Him. Adam’s disobedience was sin and sin became a barrier between God and mankind. No matter how hard one struggles, sin makes it impossible to get back to Eden.
Despite this sinful disobedience, “God so loved the world.” His love was sacrificial, self-giving, suffering love. The Greek word describing this kind of love is “agape,” implying love for the good of the other. What humanity could not do for itself, God did.
It was not man’s searching that caused God to give “His one and only Son,” it was God’s love. God had loved through covenants, through prophets, through kings, through supernatural watchcare, yet His love was not returned.
Still God offered His ultimate self-revelation through His Son, Jesus, described by the apostle John as “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
People could see “His glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth,” John says, but they did not believe. Sin that separated them from God blinded them to God’s initiative.
In a frenzy of evil Jesus was nailed to a cross, crucified as a criminal. None of humanity’s rebellion surprised God. Centuries earlier the prophet Isaiah had written of the promised Messiah that “He was numbered with the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12).
Every Jewish man would do his utmost to avoid death on a cross for the Jewish law teaches that one who dies on a tree is cursed. That Jesus never tried to save Himself was later called a “stumbling block” for the Jews.
Listen to the priests and rabbis mock Jesus with taunts of “He saved others but He can’t save Himself.” What a mistake to judge only on the present. From the beginning of His ministry Jesus said He came to “give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).
In Gethsemane when Peter tried to protect Jesus from the arresting mob, Jesus told Peter He could call 12 legions of angels if He desired. But Jesus did not. He would not. Had Jesus chosen to save Himself the tradition of Adam would have continued and there would be no salvation.
Jesus would not save Himself because through His death the righteousness of God would be vindicated and the price of sin paid. Jesus would become a curse for us (Gal. 3:13) that all who believe on Him might be freed from the curse of sin and death.
What the Jewish leaders called weakness in reality was the Power of God unto salvation. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Perhaps the priests and rabbis should have said “He saved others. Surely He can save Himself.” That is what happened. Jesus did not save Himself from physical death. To do so would have failed to fulfill the Father’s purpose. Jesus died on Calvary’s cross but three days later the power of God raised Him to new life just as Jesus had promised (John 2:19).
The power of God would not let the pangs of death defeat His one and only Son and God promises that death will not defeat those who believe in Jesus. Jesus paid the price for sin that believers might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).
Jesus said, “Whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24). The way of Adam inevitably leads to death but “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
Joy and celebration
What a wonderful message. Those who believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord have passed from death to life. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17). That is cause for joy and celebration. Though once lost, believers have now been found. Though once dead, believers now live in the power of God.
Is that a mediocre message? No. It is the message of salvation.
And that is the message the Church takes to the world. God commissioned the Church, the body of Christ, to continue His divine initiative in Jesus Christ. Our faith in Jesus may be personal but it is not selfish. As believers in Jesus Christ we join Christians through the centuries to say to all, “believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”
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