Motivations and Urgency of Evangelism - Evangelism Unlimited

Thomas P. Johnston 191
2) Rev 5:12, “Lamb that was slain”
3) Rev 7:14, “the blood of the Lamb”
4) Rev 12:11, “the blood of the Lamb”
5) Rev 13:8, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”
iii. Other references to the atonement:
1) Rev 5:9, “Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst
purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation”
2) Rev 7:14, “they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”
3) Rev 12:11, “they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb…”
4) Rev 19:13, “And He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood”
d. The angel goes forth “to evangelize an eternal Gospel to all those who live on the earth”
Rev 14:6
10. The Gospel is the primary message of the church in the pastoral epistles (see Appendix to Chapter
26):
a. “Remember Jesus Christ,” 2 Tim 2:8
11. Christ as the Lamb of God was in the mind of God before He created the world, 1 Pet 1:20;
Rev 13:8; and Christ as the Passover Lamb is one of the main elements of the Pentateuch’s prophecy
regarding the first coming of Jesus Christ
12. It is difficult to doubt that the Gospel (the cross, justification by faith, salvation in Christ, believing
in Christ) is the CIM of the NT church from a plain reading of the text:
a. While seeking to avoid endless debates over hermeneutics, I am advocating a plain reading of
the text, rather than a theologically-forced reading
b. For example, some who advocate a forced reading are those who adhere to:
i. “Oneness Theology”—baptism in the name of “Jesus only” (modalistic monarchianism)
ii. Assured healing of the sick by the prayer of faith
iii. Finding the Virgin Mary and/or the Eucharist on every page in Scripture.
Reasoning for the Glory of God as CIM:
1. It is interesting to note, by way of introduction, that Calvin likewise accused the Schoolmen
(Theologiens Sorboniques) of misappropriately emphasizing God over Jesus Christ: 174
a. Calvin acknowledged that by the Holy Spirit man must seek Christ for salvation in order to find
God175 b. But then Calvin appears to have fallen prey to the same framing of the question, using:
i. Medieval categories and logical progressions
ii. Quoting Augustine, whose quotations fill the pages of Rome’s quintessential Schoolmen,
Peter the Lombard176 and Thomas Aquinas
174 “This evil, therefore, must, like innumerable others, be attributed to the Schoolmen [theologiens
Sorboniques], who have in a manner drawn a veil over Christ, to whom, if our eye is not directly turned, we must
always wander through many labyrinths” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Henry Beveridge, trans.
[available at: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.html (online); accessed: 16 Sept 2007; Internet], 470).
175 “It is true, indeed, that faith has respect to God only; but to this we should add, that it acknowledges Jesus
Christ whom he has sent. God would remain far off, concealed from us, were we not irradiated by the brightness of
Christ. All that the Father had, he deposited with his only begotten Son, in order that he might manifest himself in him,
and thus by the communication of blessings express the true image of his glory. Since, as has been said, we must be led
by the Spirit, and thus stimulated to seek Christ, so must we also remember that the invisible Father is to be sought
nowhere but in this image” (ibid., 470).
176 Notice the Master of the Sentences, Peter the Lombard’s use of Augustine from the very beginning of Book
One, “On the Unity and Trinity of God”; Distinction One; Chapter One, “Every doctrine concerns things and/or signs”:
“While considering the contents of the Old and New Law again and again by diligent chase [‘indagine’], the prevenient
grace of God has hinted to us, that a treatise on the Sacred Page is [‘versari’] chiefly about things and/or signs. For as
Augustine, the egregious Doctor, says in the book on Christian Doctrine [‘Chapter 2, n. 2; here and in the next passage,
but with many words omitted by Master (Peter) and not a few added or changed’]: « Every doctrine is of things, and/or
signs. But even things are learned through signs. But here (those) are properly named things, which are not employed to