Lesson 3

The Commission –- Evangelism

2 Corinthians 5: 14-21 1 Peter 3:15

In Matthew 16 Jesus Christ declares that His Church will be a body on the march. In Mark 16 He reinforces that idea, telling the disciples to go into all the world with the Gospel. Every believer is an ambassador, commissioned to represent the Lord Jesus Christ to a world full of people who do not know Him.

We cannot be properly motivated to lead others to Christ until we understand God's love toward us. In Romans 5, Paul writes about this love. Though we were ungodly, though we were totally helpless, though we were hostile to and enemies of the Creator, yet "God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8).

This love of God for us is the only force that can motivate us to fulfill our commission.

"The love of Christ" is not love for Him that we produce. It is God's undying, eternal, infinite love for us, manifested to us through the Lord Jesus Christ, and produced in us by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5; Gal. 5:22).

When Paul says that this love "controls" us, he uses the Greek word sunecho. Sun means " together," echo means "to have and to hold, to possess and to control." The word can be translated "hold together," "constrain," "press on every side, urge," "impel." It carries the idea of someone possessing something and controlling it for his benefit. In this case it is God's love that possesses and controls us, that drives us continually upward in spiritual growth for our good and His glory.

This driving force is available to every one of us, but not until we begin to understand it through the study of the Word will it be activated in our lives. As we study, we see Jesus Christ more clearly. We understand with progressively more depth and intimacy what it took for Jesus to lay aside the riches of eternity and step in the flesh into time.

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:9, "that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." For us, the awesome God emptied Himself and came in the form of human flesh to live the life of a bondservant. For thirty-three years He humbled Himself, taking one step down after another after another until the final humiliation of death on a cross (Phil. 2:5-8). He did it all to bring to us the love that provides eternal life.

This is the love that compels us. The more impressed we are with it, the more clearly we will see how empty are the things of time that we once so eagerly sought. We will find ourselves, like the apostle Peter in John 6, with only one real option. At a time when many of His disciples turned away from following Him, the Lord asked Peter if he, too, were going to leave. But where else could Peter go? He knew no one but Jesus and nothing but the plan of God would ever be able to satisfy the longings of his soul. The love of Christ had taken hold of Peter.

Second Corinthians 5:17 does not say that if any man is in Christ he ought to become a new creature and old things ought to pass away It does not say that if any man is in Christ, he feels like a new creature or he acts like a new creature It does not say that the old things will eventually pass away and new things will eventually come It says, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things passed away, behold new things have come These are statements of absolute accomplished fact, they refer to positional reality When we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit instantaneously performs five irrevocable works in us:

When Paul tells the Corinthians that "one died for all," the one"' he is talking about is Adam. The entire human race was thrown into sin with the fall of Adam. When he fell, Adam died spiritually (Gen. 2:17). The children of Adam and Eve were born in the likeness of their parents. They--and their children--were all born spiritually dead, separated from God.

But because of His love, God sent His only begotten Son into this world of death and darkness (John 3:16). Jesus Christ came to die for every member of the human race. He did so with a goal in mind: "that they who lived should no longer live for themselves." The phrase "they who live" refers to all who by faith in Jesus Christ come out of spiritual death into life. "Life" is toe, the word used in John 1:4 to describe the essence of life which is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ took our place on the cross so that we could take His place in the world. He was imputed with our sins so that we could be imputed with His righteousness. He died for us so that we could live for Him. If we are living for ourselves--following our own plans, seeking our own desires--then we are not fulfilling the purpose for which Christ came into this world. He died so that we who live should no longer live for ourselves, but for Him.

When we stop living only for ourselves and start living for Christ, we begin to look at other people differently. Before, we saw others only "according to the flesh," from human perspective. We were interested in other people for what we could get out of them or for how they made us feel. But now we know that God wants us to look at others with His eyes. He wants us to set in every unbeliever what He sees--someone precious enough for Christ to die for and, therefore, someone who has the potential of becoming a new creature in Christ Jesus.

In Hebrews 5:11-6:3 the believers in first-century Jerusalem were called down for their failure to mature in the faith. These believers, who ought by now to have been teachers, were still babes who needed someone to teach them the basics of the Word. The author of Hebrews urges these people to get past the elementary teachings and to press on to maturity. He then lists seven foundational doctrines that believers must understand if they ever hope to reach maturity. One of these is baptismon didaches, "the doctrine of baptisms."

Usage of the Greek word baptizo can be traced as far back as the ninth century B.C. The word had two basic meanings: "to change the nature of something" and "to identify something with its purpose." The first meaning was employed by Homer in The Odyssey to describe the tempering of a sword. When the hot metal was plunged into water, the sword was "baptized," changed from soft to hard metal. The second meaning was used by the Spartans who would "baptize" their spears before a battle by dipping them in blood. The process did not change the physical characteristics of the weapon, but served as a picture of its becoming a battle spear, one that had tasted blood.

1. The baptism of Moses (1 Cor. 10:1-2). In the baptism of Moses, Moses is identified with a cloud and the children of Israel are identified with Moses. The cloud is Jesus Christ. The people of the Exodus generation passed through the Red Sea from slavery to freedom. No one got wet, but an actual change took place: 2.5 million slaves were identified with God’s deliverer and became free men.

2. The baptism of the cross (Luke 12:50). In the baptism of the cross, when the sins of all men were poured out on Christ, the Lord was changed. He became sin (2 Cor. 5:21). On the cross, when Jesus was identified with our sins, He was under condemnation, severed from God the Father and God the Spirit (Matt. 27:46).

3. The baptism of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). In the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which takes place at the moment of salvation, the person who has put faith in Christ is baptized into union with Christ and becomes a new creature. He is identified with Christ and given His righteousness (Eph. 4:5; 2 Cor. 5:21). He is placed in Christ and sealed there forever by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13).

4. The baptism of fire (Matt. 3:11). In the coming baptism of fire, all unbelievers will be identified with the fire of judgment. A permanent change will take place at the Second Advent when unbelievers are removed from the earth and sent to eternal destruction (2 Thess. 1:7-8; Rev. 14, 19).

 

1.The baptism of John (Matt. 3:11; Acts 19:3). The water baptism that John offered to Jewish believers was a picture of their identification with the kingdom.

2. The baptism of Christ (Matt. 3:13-1 7). The water baptism of Jesus Christ was a picture of the Lord’s identification with God the Father’s will for His life, In the process, Jesus was identified to the nation of Israel as the promised Messiah.

3. The baptism of believers (Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 16:33; 1 Cor. 1:17). The water baptism of believers in the Church Age is a picture of the Christian’s identification with Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. It is an outward expression of an inward change that has taken place.

 

Paul is saying that if we are driven by the love of Christ and can no longer live simply for our own pleasures and purposes, then we are no longer able to look at other people superficially. We have to look at people as potential believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have to see in them the infinite worth that God vested in them when He sacrificed His own Son. Therefore, our attitude to other members of the human race is completely transformed from human viewpoint, which sees only the surface, to divine viewpoint, which sees all the potential.

Our perception of other people is able to change because of the profound change that has taken place in us. Paul says that "in Christ" we are totally new creatures. At the moment of our salvation, the Holy Spirit placed us in Christ and we became new. In the twinkling of an eye, He gave us new position, new life, new power, new purpose, new destiny. The old things passed away and new things have come.

All these changes that take place when we believe in Jesus Christ are from God. None are the result of our own work. God's plan is a total grace operation. We will never fulfill His plan for our lives unless we understand grace and orient ourselves to it; the only way we can orient to grace is by faith.

What God gave each of us, He gave us for others. The "ministry of reconciliation" is from two words: diakonia, which means " service," and katallasso, which means " to effect a change or a transformation." Reconciliation is power to effect a change. The change is between estranged parties--man on one side, in rebellion against and an enemy of God; God on the other side, constantly faithful to man. Between the two was the barrier of our sin. But God reconciled us to Himself by not imputing, or charging, our sins to us. He imputed them instead to His Son on the cross.

God will never impute sins to any member of the human race. No one ever has or ever will commit a sin that was not paid for by the work of Christ on the cross. All it takes to be reconciled forever to God is to believe in that work.

God has entrusted to us the word of this reconciliation. We are ambassadors for Christ to the unbelieving world. Our message is simple and beautiful and of eternal consequence: God made His own beloved Son to be sin on our behalf. Our sins can no longer separate us from God, and thus from all that is good. The Father made Him to be sin so that we could become the righteousness of God. But the righteousness, the reconciliation, and the life are found only in one place: in Christ. We can enter that place one way: by faith.

The greatest key to effective evangelism is satisfaction in our own Christian lives. In the Greek the first Part of this verse says, "Sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts." It means put Jesus Christ in His rightful place--first place, the place of preeminence-in your life. Then you will be satisfied and you will have hope.

"Be ready" is from hetoimazo, a military word that means "to be prepared, equipped, adequate for the task at hand." To be effective in evangelism we have to be prepared. To be prepared we have to be occupied with the person of Jesus Christ. We have to set Him apart from--and above--all the details of life and then fix our gaze where He is.

"To make a defense" is the Greek apologia, from which we get the word "apologetic." Apologia means "verbal defense." It refers to someone who has the facts available and who gives reasonable evidence in court. If the prosecuting attorney in a trial does not have convincing evidence, he will never get a conviction from the court. This verse is saying that until Jesus Christ is given the place of priority in our lives, we will not be able to win our case before the unbelieving world.

Another courtroom word is used repeatedly in the Bible in relation to evangelism. Martureo, from which we get "martyr," means "to be a witness, to testify, to affirm that one has seen or heard or experienced something. These two judicial terms tell us we had better have our facts--and our personal experience-straight about Jesus Christ and about salvation. We will not have an effect on the unbelieving world until we are able to give evidence that will stand up in court.

When Peter inserted the phrase "to everyone who asks," he put an amazing twist on what we usually think of as "the right way to evangelize." He is describing evangelism by response, evangelism upon request. When we are equipped and prepared, God will bring people to us, people who wonder why we have such hope.

These people will ask us "to give an account" of the hope that is in us. Account" is from fogos and it means "a word or message." "Hope," from elpis, refers to absolute assurance, security, stability

In English, "hope" is an "if" word. When we hope for something, we want it to happen, but do not know whether it will or not. In both Hebrew and Greek, hope always means absolute assurance. Peter is telling us that when our lives are marked by victorious confidence, by spiritual boldness, then the people around us will sit up and take notice. They will want to know where our stability comes from.

Why should the unbelievers, in their cosmic power and their self-sufficiency, and in all their human support systems, why should they consider turning to Jesus Christ unless we can show them something they do not have? Until unbelievers around us are able to see something that they cannot generate by themselves, they are not going to be interested in what we have to say.

If our neighbors and friends do not see hope in us, they will not ask us about what propels us in life. A breakdown in our spiritual life impedes our ability to meet the needs of other people. The living water that Jesus promised in John 7 has to quench our thirst first, before it can flow through us to quench the thirst of others.

God intended His power to be seen in the life of every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot hold the Bible in front of the world and expect people to see the power that is in it. The power is there, but they will not see it until it has gone through the converter of our souls. The great test evidence of the reality of the Word of God is stability, consistency, constancy in the individual Christian's life.

If they see confidence in our lives day in and day out--not just when everything goes right, but when things go wrong, when we are under pressure, when we lose loved ones, when we falter and fail but get right back up--then they will want to know what makes us tick. If they consistently see in us an attitude of spiritual boldness because of the absolute eternal confidence we have in Christ, they will begin asking what this hope is that is in us.

When we are asked what the source of our hope is, we always answer in gentleness and reverence. Prautes, usually translated "gentleness" or "meekness," is another word that in English has a completely different connotation than in Greek. In English, meekness is usually equated with weakness. In Greek, prautes means power under control.

To respond in gentleness means that we have all the power in the world available to us, but we hold it always in proper proportion. We never demand of others any more than they are able or willing to give. We allow other people maximum freedom because we expect the same for ourselves.

The way to build people is not to discourage and frustrate them, not to stomp them down, but to take them little by little to the limits of their own ability and beyond. Those who are strong have to restrain their own power, so that they can constantly keep leading those younger or weaker on into maturity and to greatness.

This gentleness with which we are to deal with those to whom we would give answers is, like the love that drives us, not a quality we can produce ourselves. It is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). The Holy Spirit--the Helper, the Comforter, the Encourager--is the power in evangelism. In Him alone do we find the motivation, the knowledge, the strength, the gentleness, to take the Gospel to the world. By Him alone can the unbeliever be convicted of his need for Christ.

God does not save us and then turn us out to wander aimlessly around the cosmic system until He returns, The instant we are saved, we are given three assignments that define the purpose of the rest of our lives and tell us how to deal with everyone we meet. No believer ever has to wonder, "What am I here for?" Those three assignments are:

1. Priesthood: our relationship to God (1 Pet. 2:5-9). Every believer is a priest to God and has the right to represent himself before the throne of grace. In Hebrews 10:19-22 we are urged to "draw near" to God, from the Greek proserchoma!, which means "to come face to face." Because our approach is built on confession, we can walk boldly into the throne room of God knowing every sin has been paid for and we have been redeemed (Heb. 4:16). God wants us to live face to face with Him.

 

Our priesthood is private between us and the Lord. No one sees what goes on between any believer and God. We function as priests through the study of the Word, which is God’s communication to us, and prayer, which is our communication to Him. Our responsibility is to stay in fellowship (1 Cor. 11:28-32; 1 John 1:7,9), to pray (Heb. 13:15; 1 Thess. 5:17-1 9), and to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. 3:18).

 

2. Ambassadorship: our relationship to unbelievers (2 Cor. 5:17-20). God has given us the ministry of reconciliation so that we might serve as ambassadors of Christ. We have a duty to the unsaved (Acts 1:8). Jesus Christ came to earth "to seek and save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10); He began his ministry in the flesh but He continues it in us (Acts 1:1). Our responsibility is to urge men to be reconciled to God.

 

Hebrews 10:23 tells us to "hold fast the confession of our hope." Katecho is a nautical term that means "to steer a straight course toward an objective." Elpis, "hope," is absolute certainty. Confidence in God produces courage before man. As our intimacy with God grows through the function of our priesthood, so does our effectiveness as ambassadors.

 

3. Ministry: our relationship to believers (1 Cor. 12:7,11; Rom. 12:1-8). Each one of us is called to be a servant to every other Christian, and our spiritual gift defines the area in which we are to concentrate our service. At salvation every believer is given a spiritual gift through which he is to minister to the body of Christ. That gift, bestowed sovereignly by the Holy Spirit as He wills, outlines the plan of God for our lives. Through the gifts of the Spirit, the Church is built up and strengthened.

 

In Hebrews 10:24-25 we are exhorted to "consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds ... encouraging one another." The word translated "consider," katanoeo, means "to bear down with the mind, to concentrate." In the exercise of our spiritual gifts we should bear down in intense concentration, meditate, exercise some mental energy in considering other people and their needs. We should constantly ask ourselves, "How can I stimulate someone else to live in the energy of the Spirit? How can I use my gift today to encourage and strengthen someone else?"

 

The word praus, "meekness," means "power under control." Praus was used by the Greeks for a war horse that was trained to obey instantly and absolutely, no matter how great the confusion of battle.

The Lipizzaner stallions are a modern rendition of the ancient Greek warhorse. Some of the stunts these horses do—such as the capriole, where the horse leaps straight up in the air and kicks his hind legs back—were actually used by the Greeks in training their horses for battle.

When the Greeks Could take a horse, with the phenomenal inherent power that can propel a thousand-pound animal at speeds over 35 miles an hour, and bring that magnificent animal under the total control of just a touch—maybe just leg pressure or knee pressure—and have that horse do exactly what they wanted, then they called that horse praus.

When we talk about the meekness of Jesus Christ, what do we mean? We are talking about the Creator of the universe, who measures the universe with the span of His hand, walking around among members of the human race, allowing people to abuse Him, to afflict Him, and ultimately to put Him on the cross. That is what the word praus means. It means that He could have snuffed out the universe with the snap of His fingers but He had His power under control.

(See "meekness" or "gentleness" as applied to the Lord Jesus Christ: Matt. 11:29, 21:5; 2 Cor. 10:1; as applied to believers: Matt. 5:5; 1 Cor. 4:21; 2 Cor. 10:1; Gal. 5:23, 6:1; Col. 3:12; 1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 2:25; Titus 3:2; James 1:21, 3:13; 1 Pet. 3:4,15.)

2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Unit 2, Lesson 3

2. What should motivate us to fulfill our commission?

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3. Why did Christ die, according to Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:15?

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4. How are believers supposed to look at other people?

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5. What is the ministry of reconciliation? What is the message of reconciliation?

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6. Describe the method of evangelism outlined in 1 Peter 3:15

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7. Define meekness in the Biblical sense.

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8. What are the three functions of every believer?

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9. What is baptism? What are the two types of baptisms described in the Bible?

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10. Is baptism necessary for salvation? If so, which baptism?

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11. What five works does the Holy Spirit perform in the believer at the moment of salvation?

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12. How would you explain the ambassadorship of the believer to a friend? What Scriptures would you use to back your claims?

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