This time we move on to consider the claim: Covenantal preaching is most fully and biblically evangelistic preaching.

Before going any further, I want to be clear about our objective in this article. Please do not expect that this article on evangelistic preaching will say everything that needs to be said about evangel­ism — even Reformed (biblical) evangelism. We will not be dis­cussing the value of strategies like advertising, book tables, home Bible studies, tape ministry, newsletters, or prison ministry. Rather, our focus will be on the kind of preaching that may be called evangelistic preaching.

Evangelism and the Old Testament⤒🔗

In our last article we defended the claim that the unity of the Bible is essential to covenantal preaching. We cannot fully under­stand a New Testament passage or text apart from the Old Testament. We now get to apply that principle in connection with the matter of evangelistic preaching.

You see, very many Christians believe evangelism and missions are strictly New Testament ideas and practices. This may well be explained by supposing, as many do, that in the OT, God was inter­ested only in the nation of Israel.

But already when God estab­lished His covenant with Abram, He promised that Abram would be "the father of many nations" and that in Abram, "all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Gen. 12:3). In fact, God even changed Abram's name to Abraham ("father of a multitude," Gen. 17:5) because He would make him the father of "a multitude of nations." We could say, then, that God's covenant with Abraham was from the start multinational in design, in purpose, and in scope.

This multinational character of God's covenant with Abraham and his posterity was maintained throughout the OT by the prophets God sent to His people.

Only with the coming of Jesus Christ, who is the Seed of Abraham, and only in terms of the Great Commission, do the covenant promises made to Abraham begin to be realized on a worldwide scale. Jesus commands His followers to make disciples of "all the nations." Those who believe in Christ are the true chil­dren of Abraham ("Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham," Gal. 3:7). Abraham is the "father of us all" who believe (Rom. 4:16­, 17). This means that in Christ, Abraham has become the father of a multitude of nations.

Evangelism and missions did not begin in the NT! From the very beginning, God's covenant with Abraham was multinational and worldwide. God designed this relationship that we've been call­ing "covenant" to include people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. Therefore, we must not be surprised that when the "time" comes for the gospel to go out to every nation, this gospel will be covenantal in both form and con­tent.

Evangelistic preaching←⤒🔗

To describe evangelistic preach­ing helpfully, we should have a clear understanding of the gospel, what we call the "evangel" or good news. This good news has two parts: (1) God has come in Jesus Christ to redeem His people from the guilt and power of sin in order to restore them to their orig­inal purpose and calling to serve Him in all of creation; and (2) God summons all people to believe in this Jesus Christ in order to receive these benefits and to be restored in this way. This is the gospel.

Notice that Peter's Pentecost ser­mon reaches its climax with this declaratory summons: "Therefore let the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ — this Jesus whom you crucified" (Acts 2:36). Peter's second sermon ends with this announcement-summons: "For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways" (Acts 3:26). Just before the stones began thud­ding against his body, Stephen­-the-evangelist "won over" his audience by calling them "stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears," charging them with "always resisting the Holy Spirit," killing the prophets, and disobey­ing the law (Acts 7:51-53).

Throughout the book of Acts, the missionary preaching of Paul and Peter and the other apostles, in terms of its structure and content, pointed their hearers to what God had done in Christ and to their obligation in terms of that divine activity.

Surprisingly, we discover pre­cisely the same approach in the NT epistles written by these and other apostles. That is to say, in terms of their structure and the content, these letters declare what God has done in Christ by His Spirit and these letters summon church members to holiness and obedience. Because many of these epistles were written to, and read by, congregations in their gather­ings, these epistles formed part of the gospel preaching by which the early church was fed and nurtured.

On the basis, then, of the preach­ing described in Acts and exem­plified in the NT epistles them­selves, we may say that all preach­ing should be evangelistic in the sense of being "gospel preaching," and because the gospel is covenantal, all preaching should be covenantally evangelistic preaching.

Put another way, all preaching should declare the gospel, which consists of promises of forgive­ness, righteousness, and eternal life in Christ and its summons to faith, repentance, and holiness. Such a declaration in preaching should be made to both those who believe the gospel and those who do not believe the gospel. This is evangelistic preaching.

Covenantal evangelism←⤒🔗

Back in 1976, Rev. Norman Shepherd wrote a stimulating and challenging essay explaining covenantal evangelism. Entitled "The Covenant Context for Evangelism" (published in The New Testament Student and Theology [Presbyterian & Reformed]), the essay argues that "precisely the covenant affords the perspective from which the evangelistic task of the church ought to be approached, not only with respect to the youth of the church, but also with respect to the church's worldwide missionary calling" (p. 53). Rev. Shepherd unfolded this thesis with three claims. First, "the Great Commission arises out of and is patterned after the covenant made with Abraham" (p. 54). Second, "Reformed evangelistic methodol­ogy must be consciously oriented to the covenant of grace rather than to the doctrine of election" (p. 57). Third, "baptism rather than regeneration is the point of transition from lostness in death to salvation in life" (p. 66).

If you are interested in keeping together — as the Bible does — both "covenant" and "evangelism," you will find Rev. Shepherd's essay very helpful. If you and your church want to escape the false dilem­ma of choosing between being "for Christian education" or being "for evangel­ism," you will find Rev. Shepherds essay very enlightening. If your pastor and elders have been wrestling with the seduction of "designer worship" — designing worship "styles" that either build up the saints or reach out to the lost — this essay will equip them to win that struggle.

In the so-called Great Commission, Jesus prescribes for His NT church the very same worldwide evangelistic methodology that God had established for Abraham and his descendants.

In Genesis 17 God's summons to obey His precepts was the covenant bud. Teaching disciples from the nations to obey the commands of Christ is the covenant flower in Matthew 28. Righteousness and justice, embodied in the commands of God, was what Abraham needed to teach his children for the sake of the nations. Now that Christ and His Spirit have come, these commands and their fulfillment in Christ must be taught to the nations as part of covenantal evangelism.

In the OT, circumcision was the sign of inclusion in God's covenant and of receiving both the promises and the obligations of that covenant. In the NT, baptism is the sign of that same inclusion and of receiving those same promises and obligations.

Obedience and sacrament belong to the covenantal structure of the gospel and of the Bible. Read carefully and compare: "God said further to Abraham, 'Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised'" (Gen. 17:9-10).

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I com­manded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:19-20).

Obedience and sacramentalized inclusion belong to the one covenant of grace. The movement from OT to NT is from less to more, from bud to blossom; but the structure and content of the covenant between God and His people remain unchanged — with this important difference: our OT fathers in the faith heard gospel preaching about Messiah-who-was-coming, whereas we and our NT fathers in the faith hear gospel preaching about Messiah-who-has-come.

Soufflé for the family,
soup for the guests
(a.k.a. the lactic heresy)

Keeping together in our preach­ing both "covenant" and "evangel­ism" means that there is one gospel, one message, one kind of preaching for those within the church and those outside the church.

Admittedly, the skilled preacher will be sensitive to the capacities of his hearers, with regard to vocabulary, defining terms, effec­tive illustrations, and the like. But such sensitivity is already required by the presence in the congregation of people of various ages, various occupational and educational backgrounds, various stages of family development, and the like. Crafting the sermon skill­fully to be within reach of every­body is not a feature unique to what is often called "evangelistic" preaching — by which is meant: preaching to "outsiders." No, this feature should characterize all preaching!

Sadly, too many church members believe that "evangelistic" preach­ing is the kind of preaching that "outsiders" need, while those who've grown up in the church need something more substantial. Naturally, this view leads to organizing churches that are "evangelism-minded," whose worship is less formal and less tra­ditional. In terms of the church's preaching, worship, and government, too many think the church should be serving soufflé to the family and soup to the guests. This is also known as the lactic heresy: evangelistic preaching gives milk, but edifying preaching serves meat.

The problem with this view is twofold. It rests on an overestima­tion about those "inside," and on an underestimation about those "outside" the church.

There appears to be far too much presumption about the level of spiritual knowledge and under­standing of those within the church. This presumption easily views second or third generation believers as if they were born that old in Christ, rather than viewing them as babes in the covenant of grace who need spiritual nursing in order to believe and obey. Such presumption easily breeds spiritu­al pride and carnality in the church. Church members given to this presumption get very irritated when the preacher talks to them like they were mere children. Unfortunately, they may well be!

(By the way, be careful lest you dismiss any preaching that addresses such pride and carnality in specific terms as moralistic preaching. Unfortunately, some today are peddling the idea that a sermon that addresses the text to specific sins in the church disqual­ifies as redemptive-historical preaching. This is an error we should discuss another time.)

Flowing from an overestimation about those inside the church is an underestimation about those out­side. If it is presumed that "we" are old enough to chew meat, then it seems logical that "they" need milk — a simpler, plainer, gospel preaching that avoids "church words" (code for "Bible doc­trines") like justification, imputa­tion, sanctification, and the like.

This lactic heresy becomes clear when we study in their contexts various NT references to milk and meat.

For example, the apostle Paul wrote to Corinthians:

I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?

1 Cor. 3:2-3

Here, the metaphor of "milk to drink" denotes a dietary capacity suited to the old, fleshly nature. The apostle criticizes these church members for not yet being able to handle solid food because of their carnal congregational lifestyle. These saints still need to drink milk yet.

Or consider Hebrews 5:12-14:

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of prac­tice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

Again, the author is criticizing church members for doctrinal and moral immaturity.

And it was to church members that the apostle Peter wrote:

Therefore, putting aside all mal­ice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like new born babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. 1 Pet. 2:1-3

No, "milk" and "meat" are not metaphors for the kind of food suitable for those outside and those inside the church. In the NT these two usually mark the con­trasting capacities of church mem­bers to chew and swallow the teachings of the gospel.

What then must we do?←⤒🔗

So what then must we do to encourage evangelistic preaching from our pulpits? Answer: encour­age fully biblical covenantal preaching to all people! Just as the OT prophets and the NT apostles, our preachers today must open up every preaching text in a way that declares to all people — from the preaching text! — what God has done in Christ and what God requires in response.

The kind of preaching that both proclaims the promises of salva­tion fulfilled in Christ and sum­mons hearers to faith-obedience in Christ will necessarily constantly appeal for repentance, conversion, self-denial, and holiness — as the only fitting response to what God has done in Christ. Such appeals will be passionate, pastoral, and personal — but they will be truly evangelical (gospel-full) only when they arise from the text's good news of redemption accom­plished and applied in Christ Jesus.
 

That is covenantal-evangelistic preaching!