Many local churches I know have as a part of their mission statement, We need to be deliberate in our churches in “making disciples  who will make disciples.” It rolls off our tongues so easily, but is demanding in actualizing. As I insisted in my last article, we must nurture and cherish the bond between word and deed, ideas and consequences, beliefs and actions. And I’m certain that the primary place where this kind of evangelizing can and must take place is the local congregation.

Engaging with a ‘Generic Christian’

Sometime ago, I was driving on Poplar Avenue, a main street in Memphis  on which the church I served for 13 years as lead pastor is located. The car ahead of me had a bumper sticker. The bumper sticker is a way for a lot of people to sow whatever seeds they want to sow in the minds of other people. Also, it is one of our dominant means of communication, to say to the world around us that we’d “rather be sailing,” or that we “love our dog.” When I got close enough to the car ahead of me to read the bumper sticker, I saw, in big letters, “I am a generic Christian.” That attracted me. I wanted to know what that meant. So, I got closer to the car, knowing that there were some smaller letters written beneath those large ones. I got dangerously close to the back of the car to read the words: “Ask me what I mean.” Well, that intrigued me even more.

I suppose my interest was whetted further by the fact that the car on which that bumper sticker was displayed was a $85,000 Mercedes. I wondered how any driver of a Mercedes could be considered a generic anything. The car turned into the carwash. I had no intention of getting a car wash that day, but my interest had so peaked that I couldn’t pass it up. So, I turned in to get my car washed also – but really to engage that fellow in conversation.

He told me that, while he was a member of a local congregation in our city, he was so tired of the denominational emphasis in so many churches that he wanted to proclaim a different kind of message that the important message was to be Christian in the generic sense, not a “brand-name Christian.”

The Need for True Discipleship

Well, he had a point. But I wonder, don’t we have too many generic Christians and not enough disciples? Sometimes the reaction to “denominationalism” can become an excuse for refusing to be involved in any actual congregation. Still, to merit the faithfulness of erstwhile generic Christians, congregations must be prepared to get deeply and truly involved in the privilege and challenge of making disciples.

Too many congregations slink into the pattern of offering episodic programs emphasizing the mission statement. I believe the more desperate need in most congregations is deliberate consistent training in the “core” of the Christian faith and what it means to be a disciple, an intentional follower of Jesus Christ. We must have a “design” for that which will move folks along in a deliberate way in their discipleship growth. Our goal is simple, but requires comment and consistency. We want our congregational members, as Christians, to be reasonably informed, reasonably inspired, and reasonably equipped.

Understanding Discipleship Evangelism

I don’t know who coined the term “discipleship evangelism.” I believe it is a good one because it names the nature of evangelism: discipleship evangelism. Reflect on what that means.

First, it means that we can’t claim Jesus as Savior without a willingness to surrender to him as Lord.

Second, it means that an emphasis on a faith which does not include fidelity to Christ’s call to walk in newness of life and to share that life with others is a distortion of the gospel. Faith which does not give attention to holy living and ethical issues, telling the truth, seeking to live morally clean lives, shunning evil, fighting personal immorality and social injustice, feeding the hungry, caring for the needy, seeking the lost, suffering for those to whom the world has said no– that kind of faith, a faith which does not give attention to holy living and ethical issues, and does not care for others, is dead (James 2:26).

Third, it means that a faith which emphasizes holy living, ethics, and good works as a saving way of life is a false faith. Does that sound contradictory to what I have just been saying? What do I mean? I mean that holy living, ethics, and good works do not save us, but rather are the evidence of the transforming work of the Spirit within us.

Designing for Discipleship Growth

Along with owning the meaning of discipleship evangelism, I repeat, we. must have a “design’ for that which will move folks along in a deliberate way in their discipleship growth. That’s the way we will move to accomplish our mission of “making disciples who make disciples.”

This is part I of a five part article outlining a Wesleyan Anthropology arising from a Biblical Worldview. Originally an oral presentation for the Wesleyan Church, it has been revised and updated for a broader Wesleyan Methodist audience.

Being retired from Indiana Wesleyan University means I no longer need to prepare 12 lectures a week or to lead faculty meetings or solve student issues as an administrator. Now, I have time to read for leisure. 

The second-best book that I have read this year was Boys in the Boat.

A Riveting Read: Boys in the Boat

Boys in the boat. It’s the story of a world class rowing team (crew) at University of Washington in the early 1930’s, climaxing in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Now, if you only saw the movie, none of what I will say makes sense. For Hollywood made an amazingly complex story into a mere sporting competition. Life is much more complicated that running (rowing) a race. 

Boys in the Boat is an intricate study of the interweaving of multiple social forces at work.

1. The North American-European geo-political interactions with pre-WWII Nazi Germany. These tensions are magnificently intermingled throughout the book; until they rise to a crescendo at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. 
2. It also a complex economic study of America, especially in the American Northwest during the first half of the Great Depression.
3. The book delves into the science of weather patterns in the State of Washington, which consequently lead to the horrific Dust Bowl years of 1930-36. 
4. The book was also about the amazing art form of boat building from cedar, oak, and other native wood from virgin forests of the northwest. All trees were harvested, transported, and handmade by artisans who have developed these skills over generations.  
5. This a book about a sport that most, if not all of you have never seen in person, unless you did your PhD in England, where this still reigns alongside “football”, cricket, rugby. From an American perspective, you might be shocked to learn that “8-man crewing” in the 1930’s drew national attention on the radio and newspapers, on par with baseball and American football. 
6. Boys in the Boat also includes the psychology of human persons, the intricate mastery of the mechanics of the sport. The book goes into detail of practice after practice to perfect its time-tested techniques and strategy. It’s not to be seen as pure power but glorious team unity as a boat is not rowed “through” the water.  But rather, if done perfectly, they ride “upon” the water with harmony and symmetry.

Boys in the Boat is not a “sporting book” but a carefully researched and beautifully written anthropological study of how social, economic, cultural, and scientific forces all come together into a complex matrix. In life, every-single-thing is impacted by EVERYTHING. That is anthropology. It’s the most complex academic discipline of all, because you must be aware of all the outside forces and inner pressures which alter human decisions and shape culture.

Integrating Anthropology with Theology

Now, in our conversation today, we will make anthropology even more complex by integrating it with the metaphysical world, thus creating Theological Anthropology. And just to add to the level of complexity, “EVERYTHING” is theological. 

What does it mean that the Lord Himself is engaged in the creation and his on-going conversation with humans? Aaron Perry, in a recent email defined it this way for us, [Theological Anthropology is] “considering human beings (that is the Anthropology part) in light of the Word, work, and will of God (that is the theological part).” 

A Biblical Worldview Through Crucial Questions

For me, the best way to begin defining this God-Man conversation in Wesleyan terms is to portray it through the lens of a biblical worldview. Bill Arnold, beloved professor of Old Testament at Asbury, has created a simple model based upon our answers to 4 crucial questions:

1. 1. Where have we come from? What is our cosmology?
   2. Who are we? What is our anthropology?
   3. What has gone wrong? What is our Hamartiology?
   4. What is the solution? What is our Soteriology and Eschatology?

May I say, a helpful world view is not found in a systems theory or a philosophical argument but in a story. And our story of the world must be truly compelling. Our biblical worldview must captivate all those watching us.  Yes. In Christ, we have become a made-new person and the way we live in allegiance with this revealed worldview is the best tool for discipleship ever devised. It’s not another program – Four Spiritual Laws or Evangelism Explosion. To know the world this way is not merely an intellectual or cognitive act. It’s a full commitment to embracing the person of Jesus and His revealed truth. David DeSliva, in his book Transformation: The Heart of Paul’s Gospel says “Paul’s mission was not essentially about ‘winning souls’ . . . It was primarily about working with people to surrender themselves to the work of God, to deep and fundamental transformation whereby their lives cease to be what they were, and begin to be an extension of Christ’s own willing, being, and doing,”

So, what precisely is our compelling worldview story? First, we need to address, “Where have we come from?”

Georgia Harkness was once considered one of our most outstanding theologians.

She was certainly a brilliant thinker and spoke prophetically to the church. Here is such a word: “We must rescue evangelism from the red-light district of the ecclesiastical community.” That’s putting it unquestionably straight.

Evangelism has been prostituted for money and personal gain. That’s the reason we need to remind ourselves that the focus of evangelism must be the local congregation, not primarily the street corner, the storefront, or the television. What may be most helpful is to think of evangelism and discipleship together.

Jesus’ Charge to His Disciples

In his parting word to the disciples, Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

He spoke this word to the persons he had chosen, trained, tested, and nurtured. His charge to them was not a heavy command, “you ought to” or “you must”; not even “you should.” It was a simple statement of fact, “You will be my witnesses.”

The Great Commission

In another setting, Jesus gave his call to the early church: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and remember, l am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). There’s no room for confusion about direction in this explicit instruction of our Lord. Spreading the gospel was to be top priority. No Christian was exempted from the task of disciple-making, and no aspect of life was excluded.

While the so-called great commission has been used as a foundation in evangelistic literature, and a challenge to churches to fulfill their missionary and evangelistic responsibility, it is more than that. It is a definition of the nature of mission itself. The resurrected Lord calls his disciples to “make disciples of all nations; baptizing and teaching them.”

Discipleship in Modern Evangelism

In the past three or four decades, there has been a renewed emphasis on discipleship in evangelism. One of the chief promoters of this emphasis, according to Mortimer Arias, has been the Church Growth school under the leadership of Donald McGavran; so much so that they have coined the term discipling as the verbal form to describe the evangelistic task. According to Arias, making disciples is for McGavran the specific evangelistic mission, and teaching and baptizing are left to other ministries in the church, and for a later stage in the life of the convert or disciple.

In our ongoing conversation we should note that Leslie Newbigin has charged that McGavran’s exegesis of the text will not stand scrutiny. It is clear in the original Greek that disciple the nations is the main verb, and that baptizing and teaching define what discipling’ is.(1) 

Thus, while we can agree with McGavran that discipling is the heart of evangelism, we can also agree with Newbigin, against McGavran, that discipling, and thus evangelism, includes “baptizing and teaching”.

Evangelism in Practice

This was our Lord’s definition. All too often, however, it has not been the practice of those who claim to evangelize. The evangelism of the electronic church, for example, does not seem to be too concerned about making disciples. Further, I doubt if these “trans-national corporations of evangelism,” as Mortimer Arias calls them, are taking seriously the call to make disciples, which in Jesus’ own words means “teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you.”

We can’t explore here the depth of all this means, but we can at least register the direction of what is implied for the local church. The Great Commission sends us back to everything Jesus taught. Certainly if we wanted a summary of the content of everything Jesus taught, it would be Jesus’ own summary of the law and the prophets and the great commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).

The Great Commandment and the Great Commission

John R. W. Stott, the British evangelical leader, was right when he declared at the 1974 Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization: “There is no Great Commission without the Great Commandment” 

We can’t talk about evangelism in and through the local church without talking about discipleship. And we can’t talk about discipleship without talking about evangelism.

Future Reflections

I will be writing a series of reflections on discipleship and evangelism in the weeks to come. Though I may not be thorough and systematic in these articles, I will seek to underscore the core of the Christian faith and way from a Wesleyan perspective. If you have wondered, that’s the reason we are publishing on WESLEYAN ACCENT.

(1) Mission in Christ’s Way: Bible Studies (Geneva: WC C, 1987) quoted  in Arias “The Great Commision” p. 17

Don’t believe the story.  So went the surprising proclamation of DL Moody – 

Some day you will read in the papers that D.L. Moody of East Northfield, is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal—a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint; a body fashioned like unto His glorious body.” “I was born of the flesh in 1837.

I was born of the Spirit in 1856.

That which is born of the flesh may die.

That which is born of the Spirit will live forever.

The evangelist who desired all to know Jesus – the story of His life, death and resurrection – knew the reality beyond the headlines of newspapers. The man knew well who he was – whose he was. Do we still know this good news today?

It can be easy to be distracted and lose focus. Today, we have more capacity to connect with whoever and whatever than at any prior point in history. With smarter devices and the digitalization of everything, the vast majority of the known information is available at our fingertips. If the headlines are right, we are on the verge of transcending knowledge in a technological utopia.

Tragically, the data does not bear this out. Studies show we have fewer close friendships than ever before, even though social media portends thousands of friends. We have more publications to choose yet close ourselves off from reporting which does not go along with our narratives. All are a short notification away, but loneliness has been declared an epidemic threat against our health. In the age of connection, we seem to be less connected than ever.

Still, the good news of Jesus persists. We are not condemned to be alone, but rather to be loved by God and others (1 John 4:7). We need not be conformed to this world any longer (Romans 12:1-2). We should not be confined to the prison of our desires and the resulting destructive habits (James 1:14-15).  

John Wesley wrote it clearly and simply:

God loves you; therefore, love and obey him. Christ died for you; therefore, die to sin. Christ is risen; therefore, rise in the image of God. Christ liveth evermore; therefore live to God until you live with him in glory.

God’s grace allows us to know ourselves as loveable. As loveable people we are capable of turning from the dark pain of our past towards the eternal life illuminated in the light of Jesus’ resurrection. Knowing, confessing, and living this truth rests our life with God for eternity. God’s love can then flow through us to others in a beautiful, gracious cycle. 

Only as individuals, we can get caught in the constant stream of information. Alone, and untethered from community, our eyes drift to the shadows which pull us down the day to day current, rather than to the eternal light of Christ which gives light to the whole world. Headlines call us to fear and division. Our cell phones vibrate with endorphin laden distractions. Babylon beckons with promises of fulfilled ambition and just out-of-reach wealth. Issues rise up and tempt us to partisanship which adds to the atmosphere of division among image bearers of God.

We do well to remember the words of Paul which were written while imprisoned by the headline makers of his days:

All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

17 Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. 18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Paul reminds us where to fix our gaze. True power does not reside in the temporal, but in the one who created time. True hope is not in the next vote or deal, but in the reign of Christ. We must act here and now, but followers of Jesus must live lives which are different, holy.

Followers of Jesus are in this world but not of this world. Our orientation is toward the heavenly Kingdom. Through this focus, we are able to passionately serve those around us. Minds fixed on Christ remember the heart of the issues before us are the issues of the human heart. For when we try to fix an issue without first dealing with the sin which separates us from God (and thereby the good and one another), we are not good estimators of what is actually  happening around us. Our supposed solutions to the present problems then become the problems for our children to solve. 

Wesley went on to say we are called to proclaim what the Holy Spirit has revealed to our hearts. The love of God, and by it, the love of all mankind in word and deed.

It was by a sense of the love of God shed abroad in his heart, that everyone of them was enabled to love God. Loving God, he loved his neighbor as himself, and had power to walk in all his commandments blameless. This is a rule which admits of no exception. God calls a sinner his own, that is, justifies him, before he sanctifies. And by this very thing, the consciousness of his favour, he works in him that grateful, filial affection, from which spring every good temper, and word, and work.

Wesley knew well that pursuing holiness meant a downstream blessing for all our neighbors. Allowing the Spirit to work within us means we can impact the world through love in ways the world cannot think possible. Loving our neighbor means we always see the person in every issue. We seek the heart of the person in front of us more than winning an issue. We seek truth and justice as we seek our fellow humans. We live tabernacled/incarnate lives in our neighborhood, not just in the digital footprint.

Wesley lived this out to the tune of prison, hospital, and orphanage reform. Those in his movement followed with works of abolition, ministry to alcoholics, presence amongst poverty, and combating illiteracy. The people called Methodists answered the call to draw near to all who needed the gospel. Even if it was far from the spotlight of the latest headline. Wesley knew where his citizenship was held, where his life really resided. By being so heavenly minded, he was of great earthly good.

Headlines are intended to grab attention regardless of the facts of the story or impact of the tale. In Jesus, we are grafted into a story which calls all people to love, hope and peace. Followers of Jesus still have good news worth proclaiming.  Our lives are not solely dependent on what humanity thinks and does right now. Rather, we have the knowledge of an eternal life of love, and the means of the Holy Spirit to share that love with our neighbors wherever we live – whatever the conditions.

It may not be good writing or even good grammar, but I deliberately put a question mark after the title of this article, Falling from Grace? This is a follow-up to my last article where I also put a question mark in the title Once saved always saved? Oh! Both, “falling from grace,” and “once saved always saved,” have to be questioned.

I closed my last article by suggesting that whether we can or can’t fall is not as important a question as whether we do or don’t. I continue the discussion here because the issue is important.

In our Wesleyan Methodist tradition, we talk about going on to salvation, because Salvation is a journey – the climax of which is being saved to the utmost, which comes through sanctifying grace, giving us power over sin. But that raises an opposite point: that there may be sin in the life of the believer.

That thought calls for a clear understanding of what we mean by sin. Wesley meant by sin “an actual, voluntary transgression of the law;… acknowledged to be such at the time it is transgressed.” Wesley always left open the possibility of involuntary sin, which he felt did not bring God’s condemnation. But to sin willfully in a continuous way certainly jeopardizes our salvation, for it separates us from God.

With that understanding the case was clear for Wesley. We may “fall from grace” and forfeit our justification, but we don’t have to. Whether we can or can’t fall is not as important a question as whether we do or don’t.

It helps our understanding to stay aware of two major principles. First, there is the principle of the abiding potential of evil within our lives – the old way of sin, which remains latent even in regenerated persons. Second, there is the principle of our absolute dependence on God. Even after we have been converted, we can do no good by ourselves, but must rely completely on the Spirit of God which performs the good in us and through us.

That means we must give ourselves to moral and spiritual discipline. As Christians, we repent daily, and cast ourselves on God’s grace. We grow in that grace and move from the threshold of faith – our justification by God – toward the fullness of grace, our sanctification. And all along that journey, we can be kept from falling from grace, kept from forfeiting our justification by the glorious assurance of which, with Fanny Crosby, we sing,

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God
Born of his Spirit, washed in His blood.

In my last three articles I have discussed assurance and sanctification. These aspects of salvation lead us to think about what separates a Methodist understanding from those who believe in eternal security. Once saved, always saved was a theme I was asked often about in the first churches I served in rural Mississippi.

We Methodist Wesleyans believe that it is possible to return to sin in our lives to the point that we forfeit our salvation. According to Wesley, this is not easy to do, but it is possible.

We must not allow the question to be centered on whether God is able to keep us from falling. Of course God is able! It is a matter of whether we are vigilant in responding to God’s grace. If we cultivate and stay alive to the Holy Spirit we can be aware when the temptation to fall back into old patterns of sin is gaining power. We also recognize and not allow the seeds of “new sins” to germinate and spring up in our lives.

Being always saved depends on whether we continually listen to God’s voice and not allow that divine love to grow cold within us.

For further reflection, I make the case by coming at it from a different direction. There are two widely held notions about sin in the believer that are different in the way Wesley thought and taught. One thought is that, “Yes, sin continues in the life of the believer, but it is not possible for sin to separate a person eternally from God. One may backslide, but still be saved – if ever saved in the first place.” The “if ever saved in the first place” is a common escape hatch. I’ve never had a discussion about the issue where the conclusion, “The person was never saved anyway!” did not sound. How can we make that judgment?

The second thought is that in our justification, and certainly in our sanctification, sin is completely eradicated from the believer’s life. The error in this position is that it treats sin as a “thing” we do. Sin is a relation. The question is not one of removal of sin from our lives, but of reconciliation with God which overcomes the estrangement of sin.

Separated from God by our sin, justifying grace brings us together again. Grace continues to work, sanctifying us, restoring us, until we are so at one in relationship with God. In that at-one in relationship with God our intentions are centered on doing God’s will, and our love is perfected to love as Christ loves.

Once saved, always saved? Oh! The discussion will continue. If we are a part of the discussion it is helpful to remember we may “fall from grace” and forfeit our justification, but we don’t have to. Whether we can or can’t fall is not as important a question as whether we do or don’t.

In an earlier article, we reflected on Wesley’s insistence on perfection being an essential dimension of our going on to salvation. He came from his Aldersgate experience convinced that all could be saved, and all could be saved to the uttermost. Thus assurance and perfection became essential in his understanding of grace working for our full salvation.

As I wrote in my last article, for Wesley, the terms Christian perfection, sanctification, and holiness carried the same meaning. Holiness is not optional for Christians. Jesus was forthright: “You shall be perfect, your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48 NJKV). The Holy Spirit, through Inspiration given to Peter, confirms the call: “As He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.” (1 Peter 1:15 NKJV)

Wesley’s concern about holiness/perfection did not begin at Aldersgate. He preached a sermon on it, using the verse, “Real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal,” as the text for the  sermon, “Circumcision of the heart,” which he preached at Oxford University on January 1, 1733. This is the only sermon Wesley preached before his conversion at Aldersgate in 1738 that he kept in its original form and used throughout his life in teaching Methodists. This consistency underscores a distinctively Wesleyan view of the Christian way: holiness of the heart and life, or personal and social holiness.

In 1725 he had a conversion to the ideal of holy living. He never abandoned that ideal, though it was cast in a different framework after his Aldersgate conversion.

Between 1725 and his Aldersgate experience in 1738, he consistently misplaced holiness. He was driven by the idea that one must be holy in order to be justified. That was the futile process which drove Wesley to the deep despondency that eventually brought him to Aldersgate. One of the decisive shifts that came in his conversion at Aldersgate was a reversal of the order of salvation-justification preceded holiness, not vice versa.

Howard Snyder reminds us that a part of Wesley’s genius, under God, lay in developing and maintaining a synthesis in doctrine and practice that kept biblical paradoxes paired and powerful. He held together faith and works, doctrine and experience, the individual and the social, the concerns of time and eternity.  So is the synthesis of personal and social holiness, holiness of heart and life (Howard A. Snyder, The Radical Wesley, p. 143).

It is important to keep a perspective on at least a skeletal outline of Wesley’s thought, especially about our need for salvation. For Wesley, it was a matter of the circumcision of the heart which was issued in love of God and love of neighbor-holiness of heart and life.

This was captured clearly and succinctly at the formal establishment of Methodism in America at the 1784 Christmas Conference in Baltimore. The question was asked, “What can we rightly expect to be the task of Methodists in America?” The answer came clear and strong: “To reform a continent and spread scriptural holiness across the land.” That’s personal and social holiness.

But what does all this mean? Simply put, it means that we as Christians are to be holy as God is holy, that the church is to be that demonstration plot of holiness set down in an unholy world. Jesus said it means that we are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. And Paul said it means that faith without works is dead, and the work of faith is love.

Wesley would affirm this as the sum of Christian perfection – loving God, and loving our neighbor. He spoke of “inward holiness,”that is love of God and the assurance of God’s love for us. And he spoke of “outward holiness,” that is, love of neighbor and deeds of kindness. He was fond of speaking of persons being “happy and holy.” For him the two experiences were not opposites, but actually one reality.

“Why are not you happy?” Wesley frequently asked. Then he would answer, “Other circumstances may concur, but the main reason is because you are not holy.”

That’s enough for us to go on. I want to be happy and holy, don’t you?

The Holy Spirit is certainly one of the most common and most important issues of faith and doctrine in the Church. We use the term and talk about the subject assuming that people know what we are talking about — when, at most, their understanding is limited and vague, and at best, they don’t have the faintest notion of what you’re talking about.

In Chapters 14, 15, and 16 of John’s Gospel, there are telling and descriptive words of Jesus about the Spirit, the nature and ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is significant that this is in the context of his announcement to his disciples that he is going to leave them. He is preparing them for his crucifixion and resurrection, and he promises that he is going to send someone to take his place.

Contemplate that for a moment. Someone to take the place of Jesus. Remember the setting. It is Jesus’ last week with his disciples. He knows the cross is coming. He knows that he must physically leave the earth, having accomplished God’s great mission of redemption through the cross and the resurrection. So, he promises his presence beyond the grave; the Holy Spirit will come to take his place.

Remember Jesus was limited to time and space. He was confined by human limitations. The coming of the Spirit, following his death and resurrection, was the fulfillment of the promise, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” (Mt. 28:29)

In this series of articles, we will consider the different expressions of the One who is to take the place of Jesus. I urge you to read Chapters 14 and 15 as our Scriptural content and foundation.  

Different translations express the dynamic of this presence in different ways. The King James Version translates John 14:16 in this fashion: “And I will pray to the Father, and He will give you another comforter, that He may abide with you forever.”

In terms of our current use of the word comfort, that is not a good translation. We think of comfort basically in terms of sorrow and sadness. The Greek word is parakletos, and it literally means, “someone who is called to help.” So the Phillips translation is a very good one, “I shall ask the Father to give you someone else to stand by you, to be with you always.”  Isn’t that beautiful…and encouraging?  Let it settle in your mind..someone to stand by you, to be with you always.

Never in my lifetime has there been an occasion when we needed more desperately to claim this promise of someone to stand by us, to always be with us. The experience of the coronavirus was tough, complex, and challenging enough. A confounding, mysterious virus impacting the world. Then wham! the death of George Floyd, a public lynching with people looking on. Overlaying the mysterious pandemic, we had a social justice struggle more vividly felt than anything like it since the initial launching of the Civil Rights Movement sixty years ago. Following this are profound economic hurdles rising through inflation, massive migrations, and harrowing reports of war from Myanmar, Ukraine, Sudan, the Maghreb, Gaza … How long, O Lord! 

We are not a long way from the disciples when Jesus gave them his promise of companionship and comfort. They were bewildered and grief-stricken. Their minds were caught on the paralyzing thought that they were going to lose Jesus. It was hard, almost impossible, for them to even hear Jesus when He told them that he was going away physically, but that that was going to be the best for them. He was going to send someone to take his place, someone to be with them forever. 

The Holy Spirit which drove them onto the streets crying out in strange languages on Pentecost is the same Holy Spirit which still proclaims the good news of God’s presence today.

For the Good News to truly be “good news,” we must be able to lose our sin nature and exchange it for something radically different.

Can you imagine if the song went like this?

“Oh, when the sinners go marchin’ in,

Oh, when the sinners go marchin’ in,

Lord, I want to be in that number

When the sinners go marchin’ in.”

Can you imagine if Jesus’ famous statement to Nicodemus in John 3 went something like this?

Jesus:  “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again and stays a sinner, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

Can you imagine the impact of Jesus’ words to the woman caught in adultery in John 8 if it went something like this?

Straightening up, Jesus told her, “Woman, where are they?  Did no one condemn you?”

She said, “No one, Lord.”

And Jesus said, “And neither do I condemn you. Now, go. And keep sinning if you must.”

As an evangelist at heart, I have long celebrated and shared the beautiful benefits of salvation: peace with God, being filled with the Spirit of God, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, the hope of the resurrection in Christ Jesus.

But one glaring benefit I think we miss in our evangelistic efforts is the awe-inspiring truth that we literally go from sinner to saint upon conversion.

Our sin nature, inherited from the first Adam, is now dead and gone, according to Romans.  And now we have received the nature of our second Adam, Jesus Christ.  And His nature is certainly not of sin, but one of righteousness.

So how can we still consider ourselves “only sinners saved by grace” even after our sin nature has been canceled, removed, and washed away by the royal blood of Jesus?

Too often, we live below the bar that Jesus has set for us by claiming we are still sinners.

But the repeated truth of Scripture is that as Christians, we are so united in Christ that it transforms our very nature.  Christians are called by lots of names in Scripture after conversion: beloved, faithful, holy, children, and yes, saints.  But never are we referred to as sinners after we are born again.

It would certainly not be good news to be born again…still a sinner.

It’s been said, “There are no sinners in heaven, and there are no saints in hell.”

Can saints still sin? Unfortunately, of course. But that does not mean we still possess our sin nature. We must stop dumbing down the full work accomplished at the cross and share this miraculous news as part of our evangelism.

No doubt, there is an identity crisis in the world today. But there shouldn’t be one in the Body of Christ. The DNA of sinner has been changed to the DNA of a saint once we have embraced the Person and the Power of Jesus Christ.

When it comes to our relationship with Jesus, we are either a sinner or a saint; we can’t be both.

And that is Good News for us!

So, when those saints do go marching in, I really do want to be in that number!

In my previous article, I made the claim that saying yes to forgiveness is the clearest claim that we are Christian. One of my heroes, Clarence Jordan, was my primary witness to that claim. 

Clarence was a farmer and a New Testament Greek scholar. He wrote the Cotton Patch Paraphrase of the New Testament. He speaks throughout of how the segregated world of his day could be one in Christ. Yes,”God was in Christ, putting his arms around the world and hugging it to Himself.” (Jordan, 2 Cor. 5:19)

Saying yes to forgiveness is our clearest witness to the fact that we are Christian.

In this fourth article on Saying Yes to Forgiveness, we focus on forgiveness by forgiving ourselves. 

The ongoing hazard each of us face in trying to be Christian is a double one. One side of it is to become so self-absorbed that our righteousness turns into self-righteousness. Persons can become so self-absorbed with their own righteousness that they allow it to turn into self-righteousness, and all of us know a few people like that.

The other side of the hazard is to slip into self-condemnation. It may be even easier to slip into self-condemnation than it is to slip into self-righteousness.

Norman Vincent Peale tells of a time when he was a young minister, in his first church. He was still in Seminary and was disenchanted with his work and also with himself. One day he was groaning and moaning over the state of affairs to a man in his congregation. The man had little formal education, but was blunt and honest. He also possessed a great deal of native insight. As young Peale went on and on with his complaints, the craggy man suddenly made an impatient gesture and almost shouted, “Stop it! Stop all that defeatist, negative talk! Remember this, Norman, and remember it always: Never build a case against yourself!” (Guideposts, 10-85, pp. 32-33).

That’s very good advice, but we are always doing it, aren’t we – slipping into self- condemnation, building a case against ourselves. We need to say yes to forgiveness by forgiving ourselves.

Amazingly, Saying yes to forgiveness offers freedom to the other – and claims freedom for yourself. Now get that. It’s very important. Saying yes to forgiveness offers freedom to another, and claims freedom for yourself.

There is a sense in which your enmity and estrangement from another hold both of you in bondage.

Let me underscore this point by addressing a particular issue – the issue of conflict in marriage.  A family without conflict is not always a very healthy family. One writer has declared, “Show me a family that does not quarrel, and I will show you a family that will eventually fall apart.” I doubt we can be that dogmatic. Statistics, however, do show that most couples on the verge of divorce do not engage enough in open conflict – that is, they do not confront the issues with which they are dealing because they are afraid of conflict.

Saying yes to forgiveness offers freedom to the other – and claims freedom for yourself. 

Rodney Dangerfield, that zany comedian, commented once, “My wife and I sleep in separate rooms, we never eat dinner together, we take individual vacations, and we are doing all we can to keep our marriage together.”

Well, some people think that the perfect marriage is one that is unmarred by conflict – one in which there are no arguments, no expression of differences – no sign of confrontation and estrangement. In fact there are some who believe that you are truly Christian when you always have your feelings under control, never raise your voice, never lose your temper, never take a person to task or do battle. That just isn’t so. Jesus didn’t teach it. Conflict is going to arise anywhere there is an intimate relationship. So the sign of health in a marriage and in a home is not the absence of conflict – the sign of health in a marriage and in a home is forgiveness.

We can’t live together intimately without hurting each other – but, we can’t keep on hurting each other and survive a relationship without forgiveness. If we remain separated from another, you hold both yourself and the other in bondage. Saying yes to forgiveness offers freedom to the other person and claims freedom for yourself.

In this series of articles on SAYING YES TO FORGIVENESS, I’ve said four things:

One, saying yes to forgiveness is saying yes to God.

Two, we are most like Christ when we are saying yes to forgiveness.

Three, saying yes to forgiveness is our clearest witness to the fact that we are Christian.

Four, in saying yes to forgiveness we offer freedom to another and we claim freedom for ourselves.

Ours is a time of great conflict. Conflicts can be resolved through the grace of God working between us. We do not need to let the evil and destruction of alienation and brokenness overcome us, ruin our lives, and rob us from the joy and wholeness of love. We can overcome by saying yes to forgiveness.