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Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind... Romans 12:2

The Goal of Evangelism

by Rev. John Barach

What is our goal as we evangelize in a covenantal way? As Peter Leithart and Mark Horne have explained, our goal is not to get people to believe in something called "Christianity."1

The Bible doesn't say anything about Christianity; it talks about the church. Here's the example that Mark Horne gives. Suppose you, as an American, are coming up to visit me in Canada, and you stop at a restaurant. As you are talking, your waiter hears your accent and comes rushing over and says, "Are you an American?"

You say, "Well, yes, I am."

He says, "Well, it's been so long since I've talked to an American. It's so hard to find fellowship with Americans here."

You say, "Well, how long have you lived in Canada?"

"All my life."

"So your parents were Americans?" you ask.

"No, no," he says. "Sadly they remained Canadians all their lives."

"Why do you call yourself an American then?"

"Well," he says, "I've read through the Constitution. I've memorized parts of it and I believe it. I like the flag. I even read the Congressional Record. I believe in Americanism."

You will then need to tell him that there's no such thing as Americanism. To be an American means to be an official citizen of the United States of America. No matter how much you like Americans or believe in the ideals of America, you're not an American if you're born and raised in Canada and a Canadian citizen.

And so too there is no such thing as Christianity. The Bible never preaches it. What we mean sometimes by "Christianity" is a set of ideas, a set of doctrines. And we say, "Do you believe these ideas and doctrines? Then you are a Christian."

But the Bible doesn't talk that way. The Bible talks about joining the church, becoming a citizen of the Kingdom of God. And our evangelism is not complete until that happens. Even then it is not complete; there is still ongoing discipleship. But our goal is not simply to have a person adopt a set of doctrines or believe a set of things. Our goal is to have them be citizens in God's Kingdom. Our goal is to have them enter the church. And that public entrance into the church is a rite, a ritual, we call baptism.

If we evangelize covenantally, we don't orient our evangelism toward something called regeneration, an experience that may or may not happen in this person as he hears these doctrines and claims to believe them. All too often we're trying to evaluate whether he really believes them or not. But we can't make those kinds of judgments. We don't have cardio-analytic ability, we can't read his heart. Instead we must go by what God has told us and what He shows us and what He does to us.

The Great Commission speaks about making disciples, but it talks in that connection about baptizing them into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We want those who come to believe the Gospel, who put their trust in Christ, not to be isolated on their own but baptized into a community. It's a terrible abnormality to have an unbaptized Christian, a Christian who is not covenantally connected to the others in the body of Christ.

Our goal is to have people baptized. But we don't drop them after that. We want them to grow. We don't expect them to be fully mature Christians in order to be baptized into Christ, to become members of the church. We baptize them and then we want them to grow after that point. "Evangelism," says Norman Shepherd, "does not end with regeneration, but continues as long as a person lives. Baptism marks the entrance into the Kingdom of God and the beginning of lifelong training as Kingdom subjects."2

Our goal is that people will be brought into the covenant, into the church, through baptism. Some will be baptized as infants; others will be baptized later on as they come to believe the Gospel. But all of them begin the Christian life as infants—even the man who is seventy years old and has now come to understand the Gospel and is baptized. There is a sense in which he too is beginning the Christian life as an infant, as a newborn. But our goal is that all of these people join the church and be taught, instructed, discipled, trained—not only in mind but also in body—to live and to talk and to act as Christians.

And we carry out that evangelistic task with great hope and expectation, with anticipation that our evangelistic efforts will be part of the fulfillment of God's promise that Sarah will be the mother of nations, and that Abraham will be the father of nations—multitudes who will be brought and baptized into Christ. The number will be like the sand on the seashore; it will be a multitude that no one can count.

And the ultimate end of our covenantal evangelistic efforts will be that God's blessing will involve the whole of creation. The whole of creation will be transformed because Christ is now on the throne as the glorified Lord. The Adamic covenants—which always ended in death, with Israel in slavery and in exile—have been replaced now by a New Covenant, in which the indefectibility of the church is guaranteed, in which Christ's triumph is guaranteed because Christ has already passed through death into glorified resurrection life.

Our covenant God has made a promise. He intends to have a world, a whole new creation, that glorifies Him. And He is starting to bring that transformation about through us. He spreads His glory out into the world through our evangelistic efforts.

Footnotes:
1. I'm drawing here on a couple of essays: Mark Horne, "Of the Church" and Peter J. Leithart, "Against 'Christianity'; For the Church," Christendom Essays, ed. James B. Jordan (Niceville: Transfiguration Press, 1997), 29-50. A slightly different version of this essay appeared in Premise 4.2 (1997).

2. Norman Shepherd, The Call of Grace, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2000), 100.

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