Following is an excerpt from new book by John Piper. The full excerpt can be read at reformationtheology.com.
The Commercialized, Psychologized
Temperament
If the evangelical church at large was ever too confrontational
in its evangelism, those days are gone.
The pendulum has swung, with a commercialized and
psychologized temperament, in the other direction.
The church today leans strongly toward offering Jesus
as appealing or not offering him at all. And what’s new
about this temperament is that we are more inclined
than we used to be to let the customer, or the person
who is offended, define what is appealing.
The commercialized mindset moves away from
personal conviction toward pragmatic effectiveness.
It feels that if the consumer is unhappy with the
presentation, there must be something wrong with
it. When this feeling becomes overriding, it circles
around and redefines the “truth” being presented so
that the presentation can be made enjoyable. If the
claim that Jesus is the only way of salvation offends
people, the commercialized mindset will either not
talk about it or stop believing it.
The psychologized mindset defines love as whatever
the other person feels is loving. The effect is the same as
with the commercialized mindset. If a person or group
finds your summons to believe on Jesus for salvation to
be arrogant instead of humble and loving, then, if you
have the psychologized mindset, you will feel guilty and
apologetic. It must be your fault. If this mindset becomes
overriding, it too will circle around and change not only
the presentation, but, if necessary, the thing presented,
so that the other person will not feel unloved.
In this way, the unhappy consumer and the offended
listener take on a power that once belonged only to
the Bible. There is an epidemic fear of man behind
these two mindsets. In the name of marketing savvy
or sensitive communication, cowardice capitulates
to the world, and we surrender the offensive truth of
Christ’s uniqueness and supremacy.
What Is at Stake
My sense of urgency increases the more I think about
what is at stake in surrendering the universal necessity
of believing on Jesus in order to be saved. Consider
these seven issues.
Believing and Obeying the Bible Is at Stake
Believing and obeying the Bible is at stake. Treating
the Bible as our authority in matters of faith
and practice is being lost in regard to the matter of
people’s destiny. Fearful squeamishness about what
the Bible teaches is a bad sign in the church. It signifies
a movement toward self, and away from God, as
our authority.
The effects of this movement are not felt mainly in
the first generation, because we still have enough of the
residual effects of the Bible working in us for good. But
in the next generation or two, the power of the Book
will be broken and our children and grandchildren will
be helpless in the riptides of popular culture.
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you
free” ( John 8:32). “Sanctify them in the truth; your
word is truth” ( John 17:17). If we are cut loose from
the anchor of God’s Word, we will not be free. We will
be slaves of personal passions and popular trends.
Genuine Love Is at Stake
Genuine love is at stake if we lose the universal
uniqueness and supremacy of Jesus as the only way
to God. “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore
love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10). But, oh,
what a wrong we do to our neighbor if we neglect to
take him the message that, by faith in Jesus, he will
have everlasting life ( John 3:16). The world will tell
you that you are arrogant, not loving, if you spread
the message of Jesus’s saving work as the only way to
God. But God calls it love.
The teaching that diminishes the urgency for reaching
all the unreached peoples of the world with the
only news that can save them is a teaching that opposes
people. Listen to these severe words spoken by
the apostle Paul about what it means to “oppose all
mankind.” He says that those who killed the Lord Jesus
“drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind
by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that
they might be saved” (1 Thess. 2:14–16). This is what
people do who tell us that the nations don’t need to
hear about Jesus in order to be saved. They oppose
all mankind. Oh, how we need to let the Bible define
what love does!
The Salvation of People in Other Religions
Is at Stake
We will see over and over in the following pages that
the salvation of people in other religions is at stake.
They will not be saved by being sincere about their
own faith. They will not be saved through the revelation
of God in nature. The point of Romans 1:18–20
is that all people everywhere are without excuse in the
judgment because, although God has revealed himself
in nature, nevertheless fallen men “by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” Natural revelation does not save. It does not overcome this suppression. Only
the gospel does.
God has appointed one way of salvation. Jesus
Christ came into the world to save sinners (1 Tim.
1:15). There is one Mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). There is no other
name but Jesus by which we must be saved (Acts
4:12). Jesus is the way, and no one comes to the Father
but through him ( John 14:6). All who call upon
the name of Jesus will be saved, but they cannot call
on the One they have not heard, and they cannot hear
without a preacher (Rom. 10:13–14). What is at stake
is the eternal salvation of perishing people.
The Strengthening of Missionaries Is at Stake
What is at stake as well is the encouragement and
the empowering of thousands of missionaries, who
are laying their lives down to reach people who have
no access to the good news of Jesus. The teaching that
people may be saved without hearing the gospel can
rip the heart out of a missionary. There are already
huge forces at work to undermine their faith, and
destroy their joy, and ruin their ministry, and drag
them home defeated. If we add this—that those who
never hear about Jesus may be saved, no matter how we
qualify it or nuance it—the devil himself will use it, if
he can, to destroy his most feared and hated humans,
the missionaries.
My aim here is to celebrate the immeasurably important
work of missionaries. There is nothing like it
in the world. Nothing can replace it. Oh, what a rare
band—what a rare breed—of human beings are the
pioneer missionaries who say with the apostle Paul, “I
make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where
Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone
else’s foundation, but as it is written, ‘Those who
have never been told of him will see, and those who
have never heard will understand’” (Rom. 15:20–21).
The One whom the nations have never heard of, the
One they will see when we tell them, is Jesus. In spite
of all their sinfulness and ordinariness, there are no
people more to be admired and encouraged than the
missionaries who share this holy ambition.
Our Own Souls Are at Stake
At stake in this issue are our own souls. If we embrace
a limitation on the universal necessity of the
gospel to be heard and believed, we will begin to lose
the gospel, and with it our own souls. When God appoints
the gospel of his Son as the universal remedy for
the guilt and corruption of mankind, and we diminish
that, the gospel is diminished. And you cannot diminish
the gospel without being diminished yourself.
The spiritual health of the church hangs on her fullblooded
gospel-engagement—with all its dangers and
joys—in the mission of Jesus to gather his sheep from
every religion and every language and every culture
on the planet.