Jewish Contributions to Christmas - Christian and Missionary Alliance

SALVATION TODAY: QUEST OR FACT?
From December 29 through January 8 some 250 invited
participants from all over the world will he convencd in
Bangkok under thc auspices of the World Council of
Churches Commission on World Mission and Evangelism
to consider thc topic "Salvation Today."
In small groups and plenary sessions they will wrestle
with the broad question: What is the salvation which
Jesus Christ offers mcn today?
Evangelicals who suppose that this kind of a topic
signals for the World Council a significant swing from the
liberal tendencies of the past half-century may he destined
to disappointment. As Donald A. McGavran, writing in a
recent issue of Church Growth Bulletin, wryly observes,
"All the advance publications concerning this meeting indi-
cate that the World Council is making a massive effort to
reinterpret the classic meaning of salvation so that 'being
saved' will come to mean having more food, more justice,
more clothes, more freedom, more production, less dis-
ease, more brotherhood, more peace, in short, more this-
worldly inzproveme~~ts."
Dr. McGavran has reason to mistrust the WCC leader-
ship, for as he goes on to say, other essential expressions
such as mission, evangelism and convcrsion have hccn
"devalued in the same direction."
"Mission" is no longer the propagation of the gospel
but simply that which God wants done by Christians and
nonChristians. "Evangelism" is no longer the persuasive
proclamation of Jesus Christ hut rather the restructuring
of society in the direction of justice, rightcousness and
peace. "Conversion" is no longer the turning from idols
to serve the living God hut the turning corporately from
faulty social patterns to those emphasizing hrothcrhood.
And now, Dr. McGavran concludes, " 'salvation' is
apparently going to he put through the same, rolling mill
and brought out flattened and focused on temporal im-
provements."
Evangelicals do not deny the validity of social concern.
Jesus "went about doing good" (Acts 10:38). His min-
istry was marked by healings, the casting out of demons,
the feeding of the hungry.
DECEMBER 20, 1972
The Scriptures admonish us who arc His followers to
a similar concern for the temporal needs of our fellow-
men. "Let us do good unto all men" (Galatians 6:lO).
"Charge them that arc rich . . . that they do good, . . .
ready to distribute" (1 Timothy 6: 17-18).
Evangelicals traditionally havc been in the vanguard
of social concern. Antislavery legislation, the prohibition
against liquor, the founding of rescue missions, orphanages
and homes for unwed mothers-all have largely bccn thc
work of evangelical Christians.
Overseas, evangelical missionaries have promoted hos-
pitals, schools, orphanages. They havc crusadcd against
slavery, against the throwing of babies into so-called holy
rivers, against the burning of widows on their dead hus-
bands' funeral pyres.
But Jesus in His ministry on earth not only went about
doing good. He also proclaimed the Good Nenvs and called
men to repentance. And it is clear that His chief mission
was not man's temporal hut his spiritual and eternal wel-
fare. Jesus came to minister and to give His life a ransom
for many (Mark 10:45).
Even a cursory reading of the New Testament will in-
dicate that this same priority obtained for Christ's follow-
ers. While not neglecting temporal aid to suffering hu-
manity, they saw their primary mission as spiritual. Paul
talks about the reconciling of the Colossians in the body
of Christ's flesh through death, and says that it was this
good news which he was callcd to minister (1 :21-23).
If salvation-to come hack to the term under study
(and undcr fire) at Bangkok-re'fers to temporal bctter-
ment, the picture is bleak. Paul Bartel, reviewing J. Ver-
kuyl's Mesmge oJ Liberution in Our Age, a book that
purports to bring the Bangkok issues into focus, finds
Verkuyl walking "a tightrope" between conservatives and
univers~alists.
"Somehow," Bartcl says, "I get thc feeling that he re-
fuses to acknowledge the bankruptcy or our society with
its dope, scx perversions, pills, hitter racism, abortions,
women's lib, breakdown of the homc, increase of crime,
adult delinquency.
"All of this is due to man's rejection of thc salvation
God has provided. God's goal has been and will always
be to crcatc and rc-create men in His own image-making
godly men and women as opposed to carnal, natural,
human, sinni'ng men."
There is the crux of the issue. Social hettermcnt is not
an end hut a by-product. Gudlikcncss is the goal. God-
likeness begins with a radical spiritual transforma,tion of
the individual. That transformation comes when the indi-
vidual turns from his sin to God, receives by faith the
finished work wrought by Christ on Calvary, and is born
again by the Spirit of God. Apart from such an experience
in Jesus Christ there is no salvation.
To the one who has participated in that experience,
salvation is a fact-both today and tomorrow.