KEY FAILURES of Evangelistic Messages in Western Christianity

Almost all denominations know that the book of Romans is the Apostle Paul’s doctoral dissertation on the doctrine of salvation. They mostly discuss "the righteousness of God comes through faith" in the finished work of Jesus Christ. 

They also explicitly discuss that salvation has a past tense, a present tense and future tense. That would be justification (past tense), sanctification (present tense) and glorification (future tense). This simply means that past salvation is where we have been saved or we are saved, present salvation is where we are being saved, and future salvation promises that we will be saved. 

Unfortunately in spite of all this modern Modern Protestant scholarship, when it comes to evangelism, they miss out on two very important points. This tells me that in spite of all the scholarship on the book of Romans, the application of it especially in evangelism betrays the obvious fact that it is either totally misunderstood or intentionally ignored (What have these Protestant seminaries been teaching???). 

The first failure is on misunderstanding or re-interpreting salvation doctrine from the book or Romans (and for that matter the whole New Testament) and the second failure is an oversight in “common sense” hermeneutics.

The first point where modern evangelism misses out on is doctrinal: that of declaring that salvation is completed once a person receives Christ as Lord and savior. This totally ignores what the book of Romans teaches, that their salvation is not complete unless they are being saved and of course, they will not experience full salvation until the future becomes past. The existence of present tense salvation and a future tense  salvation actually answers the question: “Can we lose our salvation?” Obviously, the answer is a resounding YES. Otherwise the present tense and the future tense of Salvation are totally useless concepts!!!

Obviously, unless we work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” according to Philippians 2:12-13, which is of the present tense type, we will never see the kingdom of God. Furthermore, according to Hebrews 12:14, without holiness no one can ever see the Lord. Therefore, personal holiness is something that every believer has to continually work on, like the Apostle Paul said, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”. Even St. Peter did not believe in aorist salvation alone. He admonishes believers to "be diligent to confirm your calling and election". What useless statements or even heresy if salvation is truly just a past tense event. The early church understood that salvation starts with entering the kingdom of God by water baptism and then maintaining your salvation thereafter until Christ comes or until you die. As one can see, “once saved always saved” would have been a heresy in the pre-Nicene churches. In fact, it was a heresy until the Protestant Reformation invented the doctrine, and predictably, very few today would have the heart to condemn easy believism as heresy.

The second point where modern-day evangelism misses out on is hermeneutical. Christian Scholars know that the book of Romans focuses entirely on the doctrine of salvation. When it comes to teaching evangelism, however, they fail to ask what is Paul’s conclusion for his dissertation on salvation. The answer is not obvious to anyone who just looks at the words of scripture instead of the full picture of the message for this particular book. Most scholars look only at words: justify, sanctify, glorify, predestine, faith, righteousness, slave, in the flesh, in the Spirit, etc, etc.

But if Paul was my teacher, and after his very extensive discussion on salvation, I would ask the simple question, “So, brother Paul, what is your conclusion? How then may one be saved?” And HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT is the answer from Romans 12:1-2. “Offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God”. Here, Paul is saying that salvation involves a sacrifice (in contrast to the misunderstood, “salvation is free”) and the offering of our WHOLE bodies to God in return of his offer of salvation and eternal life (NOT works but a trade, a life-exchange). Entering the kingdom of God requires the sacrificial offering of our bodies to God, not just parts of our bodies but the whole of it. Otherwise, no salvation; and any claim to salvation is bogus.

Without much discussion, which I am tempted to do, we have the following non-Protestant conclusions:

1. Justification is NOT salvation because it does not include present and future salvation. This is why James who chronologically wrote the very first book of the New Testament declares that we are NOT SAVED by faith ALONE (James 2:24)
2. A genuine believer may lose salvation (because of the present and future tense of salvation), since it is not complete until either he sees God or be "cast into outer darkness" since according to Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:10, believers "will receive what is due them according to what has been done in the body, whether good or evil."
3. True salvation involves the sacrificial offering of our bodies to God. God will NOT bring to heaven what does NOT belong to him. That is common sense. Hence, the modern "prayer to receive Christ in order to be saved" may not actually the gospel of full salvation to the many who will not understand the full New Testament meaning of "receive" and "believe"

Since we live in a post-modern world with a culture that is remote from that of 2,000 years ago, we need to come up with a better articulation of the gospel and salvation where the hearers will get the clear message, unadulterated by all these fancy theological inventions of modern Christianity.