In the previous blog, we looked at how the perception of God profoundly influences individual lives and societies. Our understanding often stems from unconscious influences rather than intentional thought. The gospel’s expansion, as recorded in Acts, illustrates how the early apostles adapted their message to varied audiences with differing views of God, emphasizing the necessity of accurately conveying God’s nature.
During the first centuries of kingdom expansion, it became evident that the nature of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (the Trinity) needed to be clarified. The results of this clarification come down to us in the form of creeds. While most of the early creeds focused on Jesus’s nature as both God and man, the early creeds began with a clear statement on the nature of God, implying that if we get it wrong about God the Father, we get the gospel wrong.
“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible”(Nicene Creed).
The relevant question for us today is: What does our audience believe about God? Recently, our audience for the gospel has been mainly a mix of believers and “God-fearers” with a small percentage of “others.” That is no longer true.
Pew Research Center studies have shown that the number of Americans who believe in God with absolute certainty has declined in recent years. Conversely, the number of those who have doubts about God’s existence—or do not believe in God at all—has grown.
The American Worldview Inventory is an annual nationwide survey conducted by the Cultural Research Center. A current survey reveals that only 6% of U.S. adults have a biblical worldview – a way of thinking and behaving predominantly driven by accepting biblical truths, precepts, and commands (including a concept of God). Worldview Inventory of 2020 showed that:
• Americans are now more confident about the existence of Satan than they are of God!
• Only half of the nation accepts the orthodox biblical view of God as one who created and controls the universe; is omnipotent, omniscient, without fault, and just in His decisions.
Project Director George Barna stressed the significance of these new findings. “It’s no wonder that more than nine out of ten Americans lack a biblical worldview given that peoples’ fundamental understanding of the nature and existence of God is flawed.”
These trends raise questions: When people say they don’t believe in God, what are they rejecting? Are they rejecting belief in any higher power or spiritual force in the universe? Or are they rejecting only a traditional Christian idea of God – perhaps recalling images of a bearded man in the sky? Conversely, when respondents say they believe in God, what do they believe in – God as described in the Bible or some other spiritual force or supreme being?
Our picture of God is the starting point for understanding the gospel. If we add the gospel of Jesus to a distorted picture of God, we will get a warped faith. For example, if our God is a cosmic genie, then the gospel becomes a means of narcissism, not kingdom transfer and a new creation.
Sixty years ago, I learned to share the gospel using “The Bridge” illustration. I would begin by drawing two cliffs on paper, each one representing God and Man. Then, I would ask the person to describe their picture of God, and as they did, I would note it alongside God on the diagram. I would consistently get a description that God was the creator, holy, sovereign, and sometimes judge. The answers usually fit the standard Catholic/Protestant view of God. What was most often left out, however, was love. This omission gave the opening to suggest that God also loved them personally and that Jesus was the story of God’s love.
Today, we have a different audience. The cultural picture of God is more often that he is loving but not the Creator who is holy, sovereign, and just. “God loves me; that is what he is supposed to do, right?” The Worldview Inventory found that 71% of Americans “have no doubt God loves them unconditionally” (think Santa Claus).
With an increasingly biblically illiterate culture, we need to ask, “What picture of God is necessary before a person can understand the gospel?” We don’t need to present a course in Old Testament theology, but we do need a starting foundation. How would you describe the God who is the source and author of the gospel?
Several attributes come to mind when I think through the Old Testament narrative. Each one impacts the gospel of Jesus and his kingdom.
- There is one God (Deut. 6:4; Isa 46:9).
- God is self-caused and has no beginning (Gen. 1:1).
- God is the creator of the cosmos, both seen and unseen, nature and humanity (Gen. 1:1; Isa. 41:12; 45:18).
- God is relational (Gen. 3:8+).
- God is sovereign over all he has created, owner, Lord (Isa. 40:21-26).
- God is holy, totally other than what he has created, morally pure, no evil in him (Isa. 6:1+; 46:5).
- God is just and fair, the judge of righteousness (Isa. 61:8).
- God is loving, kind, and compassionate (Psalm 136; Isa. 63:7-8).
In his book “What’s Gone Wrong with the Harvest,” Dr. James Engel popularized the idea that people are on a journey towards comprehending and responding to the gospel. He divided that journey into eight steps, from -8 to 0. At the -8 stage, people are discovering that there is a God and what he is like. Once a foundation of God is established, the gospel can be introduced and gradually understood until it is accepted. Engel’s point is that people make a series of decisions along their journey to authentic faith, and it begins with their picture of God.
If God is the beginning of the gospel, one of the most important questions we can ask someone is, “What is your picture of God?”
The gravest question before the Church is always God Himself.
(AW Tozer)