Three Kinds of Men

C.S. Lewis has a little 2 page article which is not very well distributed, but is, I believe, one of his most important works. The article is called "Three Kinds of Men." You see, here in England, there is a popular evangelistic program called "Two Kinds of People." And the thrust of the evangelistic encounter is this: You go up to a non-Christian and say Listen. There are only two ways to live. You can live man's way - always trying to be good enough, always seeking after acceptance, always being led around by your sin, and always looking after me, me, me. Then the evangelist will say something like, You can either live like that - man's way, or you can live God's way. If you live God's way your life will suddenly have purpose; you will be truly selfless; you will be heirs of the kingdom, etc. (You can find an example of this argument here.)

I am not just criticizing the British on this point, American Christians, while maybe not having the formal program, use this same argument. In fact, I would argue that underneath and behind nearly all the preaching done in America (even by solid orthodox churches) lies this assumption and thrust. And, of course, there is nothing on the surface wrong with saying there are two kinds of people in the world. There are. You are either a Christian or you are not one. You either have a Biblical worldview or you don't. But Tim Keller (and Lewis through Keller) has been very helpful to me on this point. He argues that when we preach and do evangelism instead of presenting "two kinds of people" we present "three kinds of men." What are the three kinds?

Tertullian, an early church Father, said, "Just a Christ was crucified between two thieves, so this doctrine of justification is ever crucified between two opposite errors. These thieves that Tertullian is speaking of are hedonism (or relativism) and moralism (or legalism). So here you have it:

1. Moralism / "Religiosity" is the view that you are acceptable to God (and everyone else) as long as you are good enough. You see moralists in orthodox churches all the time. Moralists view God as holy and just, and this will lead them to feel completely inferior (because they can't live up) or completely superior (because they do a better job a keeping the rules than others do). Moralists are very religious and very involved in Church, but they have never experienced the joy of the Gospel
2. Antinomianism / Relativism is the view that it doesn't matter if you keep the rules. They just want to be tolerant of other people. Everyone, they say, needs to determine right and wrong for themselves. Relativists wouldn't frequent conservative evangelical churches - they would go to more liberal churches. God accepts just because He is welcoming and loves everybody. Not because he demanded justice for sin which was paid through Jesus.
   
3. Thirdly, there is Gospel. The Christian worldview is neither conservative nor liberal on the typical political spectrum. Instead it is radically conservative and radically liberal at the same time! The Gospel tells us that God is so holy that nothing short from complete payment of sins and perfect righteousness of Christ can satisfy. God is more conservative than the moralists god who can be satisfied by "trying hard." And at the same time, the Gospel tells us that God is so loving that we - even now - received Jesus' perfect righteousness and are beautiful, perfectly accepted in God's eyes. So God is more liberal that the liberal's God because it cost our God something to love us. It cost him his son, death, the depths of hell.
   

So you see, there are indeed three kinds of men. And it is important to talk about all three. If non-Christians here us talking about two kinds of men they assume we want them to become "religious" moral people. Even if we say, "Jesus did it so you don't have to," they are going to hear, "Stop sinning and be moral like me," or, "stop voting democrat and start voting republican," and that's simply not the Gospel. Our God is radically conservative and radically liberal. Let's celebrate him as such!

Why "Jesus is Lord" is not the Gospel

I want to explain something about British evangelicals: Most conservative Bible-believing Church of England evangelicals are more or less "Reformed" in their theology. But sadly, I have my doubts as to how many of these men actually know the Gospel. If you ask the average British Christian who has gone through pastoral training nonetheless, what the Gospel is, they will say, "The Gospel is simply this: Jesus is Lord." I have a problem with this.

Okay, of course Jesus is Lord. And of course the Gospel says and proclaims from the mountain tops that Jesus is Lord. Of course if Jesus wasn't Lord the Gospel wouldn't be the Gospel. But the problem I have - the frustration that I have with British evangelicalism is when you define the Gospel as "Jesus is Lord" then that becomes to very motivation for everything you do.

What, then, is the implication of this? If your motivation for being a good Christian is "Jesus is Lord" then doesn't that mean the only reason you obey Jesus is because...well, he's Lord? And when you're telling others about Jesus you're doing it because he's Lord, and he commands you to. And you're telling the non-Christian to believe in Jesus not because Jesus lived the life they should have lived and died the death they should have died so that they could become children of God. We're telling non-Christians to believe in Jesus because Jesus is Lord and if you don't act accordingly (i.e. live a moral life) it's going to be a rough ride. If "Jesus is Lord" is you're very motivation for everything you do, you're motivation is not the free grace of Jesus, it is legalism.

What is the flip side of this? If "Jesus is Lord" is not an adequate definition of the Gospel, then how do we define it? Let's take a look at evangelism. Evangelism is a hard thing to do. It is often times uncomfortable and non-Christians usually don't like being "preached" to. Now, as we have seen, if our motivation for evangelism is "Jesus is Lord," then we're evangelising because he tells us so and we if we don't evangelise Jesus will be mad. In other words, we are trying to gain Jesus' approval by obey him. We are trying to save ourselves by being good Christians. BUT, if our motivation for evangelism is the Gospel it's going to look different. Let me explain: God is a missionary God. God longs for the nations to be saved. In Psalm 2 the Father says to the Son, "Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession." The Father radically sends his only Son into the most hostile mission field ever to die for the sins of those who rejected him. The Jesus sends the Holy Spirit as a missionary to the hearts of Christians everywhere. Yhwh is a missionary God! We evangelise - not so much because he commands us to - but because it's in his very character. We evangelise not because we should or have to, but because Jesus lived the life we couldn't live, and died the death we deserve to die. And he did all of this despite the fact that we rejected him, and despite the fact that we will remained only marginally faithful at best. He did all of this so that we could become sons and daughters of God - righteous in the eyes of the Father - perfectly accepted; perfectly loved. You see if that is your motivation then you don't have to feel like you "have to" share the Gospel - it's not a burden anymore. You share the Gospel simply because it's the best news in the world. There's nothing more exciting than it. There's nothing that will fulfill and satisfy the life of the non-believe like the Gospel does. You see, Jesus took the ultimate persecute for sharing the Gospel so that now we can face our little persecutions.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to expound on the Gospel a bit more. What exactly is the Gospel? How do we communicate the Gospel in the 21st century? And what are the reaches of the Gospel? I know the purpose of this blog isn't exactly to set up "themes" as such to cover in a period of time, but I believe we should lay some ground work. The Gospel is that ground work - the very basis of the Christian's faith, the very basis of the Christian's life.