Not Being Winsome Doesn’t Have to Mean Being Unreasonable

The emphasis in evangelical circles on being winsome has gotten out of hand. Being winsome no longer means upholding the truth in love, but altering the truth to avoid offending people.

Take for example, the question of whether or not Jesus is the only way to God. To avoid offending people (in other words, to be “winsome,”) many Christians are failing to warn non-Christians, including “seekers,” about the dire consequences of offending God. Christians must learn to articulate clearly and urgently what these consequences are, and why. When we do this, we may not avoid offending people, but the chances of our offending them unnecessarily will diminish. Not being winsome does not have to mean being unreasonable.

In an article explaining “Why Jesus Is the Only Way to God, and Why Truth Claims to the Contrary Are False,” I wrote,

[M]any people seem to be offended when Christians say Jesus is the only way to God—yet they are only relating what Jesus Himself declared. “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” He said. “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

Why should this challenge our sensibilities? God, after all, is God. He has a right to establish how people should approach Him and what will be required of them to enter His home. One former pastor offers this insightful account.

While I once was witnessing to a young couple, the husband said he believed there were many ways to be saved. I asked, “If I came to your house at night, put a ladder up to a second-floor window and climbed in, what you would do?” After the man told me he would shoot me, I asked, “You mean you require someone to enter your house only in the way you prescribe, but you believe you can decide how you are going to get into God’s kingdom?”

He responded, “I guess that doesn’t make sense, does it?” I left hoping my challenge eventually would come to represent a true turning point in this man’s perspective on Jesus.¹

Rather than asking how God could exclude those who wish to approach Him in ways other than through His Son, we need to appreciate the cost He paid to provide the one way He provided. God’s perfect character requires Him to judge sin—even those actions we might deem the smallest and least significant violations of His law.

Is God Being Fair?

In a letter to his employees explaining why he believed in the God of the Bible Robert Laidlaw (1885-1971) declared,

After addressing a meeting on one occasion, a young man asked me, “Do you think it fair of God to set the standard of holiness so high that we cannot reach it, and then judge us for falling short?” I replied, “God has not set an arbitrary standard of holiness. He has not really set a standard at all; He is the standard. He is holiness in the absolute—holiness personified—and to preserve His own character, He must maintain that absolute standard in all His dealings with man, irrespective of the tremendous problems it creates for both Him and us” [emphases added].

So the question isn’t really one of fairness, but divine holiness. God cannot violate His own character.

While Mr. Laidlaw explains eloquently why God’s standard of absolute holiness isn’t a matter of fairness, but instead a matter of His own unchanging nature and character, there is another aspect of fairness we need to examine. Let’s post the question again: Is God being unfair by stipulating that people can come to Him only through His Son, and by no other way? The person asking this question needs healthy reminders of what fairness really is, that no one has been treated more unfairly than Jesus Himself, and that God has not been silent about His plan of salvation.

God sent His Son Jesus to earth to live a perfect life and to never sin; then, in the end, to be rejected, brutally beaten, and crucified. Crucifixion is the cruelest form of capital punishment ever devised. Was any of this fair? Jesus, who was sinless, took upon Himself the sins of the world and died for the guilty, making it possible for them to be forgiven and to receive eternal life, even though they actually deserve eternal punishment in hell. None of this is fair, and we can thank God it isn’t. Grace isn’t fair, and those who trust Christ are its undeserving beneficiaries!

Furthermore, God hasn’t been secretive about His plan of salvation. He revealed it in the Bible, speaking clearly about the consequences of ignoring or rejecting His Son. In John 14:6, Jesus Himself said that He is the only way to God. Since Jesus’ ascension, individual Christians and the church, sometimes at great sacrifice, have worked to spread this message around the world. Would it be fair of God to renege on His word and make exceptions, allowing people into heaven who haven’t come to Him as He has stated they must? Grace is undeserved and clearly isn’t fair, but God is totally fair in saving only those who believe in Christ. Were God to do otherwise, He would be a liar and unworthy of the trust He requires.

Having sent His only Son to come down from heaven to earth, to live a holy life, and to be rejected and to die for sinners, God took extreme actions to make salvation available to all who would willingly receive it. Jesus went to the cross willingly and laid down His life to make salvation possible for us. Hear Robert Laidlaw once more: If

I would retain any ideal of manhood, or any nobleness of character, I dare not reject One who endured so much for me. My intellect has reasoned it all out; my emotions have been deeply stirred; and now they both appeal to my will for a decision. To be true to my God and myself and my eternal future I had only one course open, and I took it. Today Jesus Christ is my personal Savior and my Lord.

Because of His love to me, because of the way He has blessed me here, and because of my assurance of a glorious hereafter, my heart’s desire is that you might share in the blessings I enjoy. Christ has done all. I say it reverently; He can do no more. He has borne the penalty of your sin also; He has been raised by the power of God the Father, and now He presents Himself to you. Will you accept Him as Savior and crown Him as your Lord?

I would implore anyone who finds these realities offensive to reconsider, and to change his or her perspective. No one can claim with even the slightest shred of credibility that God is unfair. The real issue is, Will we take advantage of the opportunities God has given us to experience His mercy and grace?

Will you?

Questions and Observations to Spark Reflection and Discussion

1. In Isaiah 1:18 the Lord declares, “Come now, and let us reason together, Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.” God invites us to “reason together” with Him. His plan to forgive us and cleanse us from our sins is reasonable — not confusing our in any way unclear. Moreover it makes sense. Even so, we have to come to understand it, because in some respects, it is foreign to human sensibilities; it never could have arisen in human imaginations. Using the information in the above article, explain why God’s plan of salvation is reasonable. Why, then, does it offend so many people? We tend to think we’re good, or at least that we’re “good enough.” But we’re not. God’s standard is absolute holiness and perfection, and we consistently fall short. In Isaiah 64:6 we see that “we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.” God’s plan to make us right with Him requires that we admit our absolute helpless apart from Him; so we must eschew pride and surrender to God. That is a sticking point — and a big one — for a lot of people.
2. It is important to read Isaiah 1:18 in context, because we understand it even better in light of the verses that follow. Isaiah 1:18-20 says, “’Come now, and let us reason together,’ Says the Lord, ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land; But if you refuse and rebel, You shall be devoured by the sword’; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Although God’s message through Isaiah to His people had an immediate application in the historical context in which it was written (the prophet’s ministry took place approximately 740-680 BC), in many places it also foreshadowed Christ’s coming, ministry, and substitutionary death — God’s ultimate plan of salvation. While we see this prominently in several passages in Isaiah, we also see it in Isaiah 1:18-20. God is the source of our salvation. It is His work that saves us — nor ours. Yet He cares about how we live. Compare Isaiah 1:18-20 with Ephesians 2:4-10. Also read Romans 8:1-14 and Galatians 2:20. Describe how being made right with God through faith in Christ (through God’s reasonable plan of salvation) and relying on the Holy Spirit equips believers to live lives that please God. We don’t perform good works for salvation, but from salvation.
3. Will pleasing God necessarily mean offending some people and making them angry? Why? We will explore this theme to a greater degree in our next post.

Stay tuned!

 

 

Copyright © 2023 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to Exposing enemies within the church, LLC, to publish and distribute this article.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture has been taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

top image credit: Photo by Joshua Rodriguez on Unsplash

Note:

¹Jerry Price, “Jesus the One and Only,” in Life Words Personal Study Guide, Fall, 2010, (Nashville: LifeWay Christian Resources, 2010), 66.