The Protestant Faith radio broadcast, 23 February 1975.
On more than one occasion, Jesus said that those who follow him would not be popular. “If they have hated me, they will hate you also”, were his words. They have proved true. Christian believers and Christian clergy are constantly under ridicule. In other societies such as Russia, they are actively persecuted. On the other hand, we all like to be popular with our fellows, so there is a constant temptation for Christians to play down the gospel message of salvation. For the message is about the awful judgement of God and of Jesus, the only saviour. This message is resisted by the conscience of the hearer, and so there is a temptation to change it into something more acceptable, for example, into a call to set right wrongs and injustices.
There are a great many injustices in human society. There always have been since the day when sin entered the world, making men and women selfish and cruel to one another. Some of the cruellest injustices at present attract little attention, for example, the unjust and cruel imprisonment of people in Soviet Russia, where fathers of families are torn away and given long sentences simply because they are witnessing to Jesus. Month by month, news comes out of Soviet Russia of new injustices perpetrated there, but the news is received in silence.
Some of the injustices being campaigned against by Christians these days are phoney. They are not real injustices at all. For example, there is nothing inherently wrong or unjust in inequality of wealth or inequality of voting power. Christians are not called upon to correct these things as part of their gospel mission. Indeed, to take an extreme example, there is nothing inherently wrong in slavery. It is a form, certainly a less than desirable form, of master/servant relationship, but the Bible does not condemn it but teaches how master and slave should act justly to each other within it. What is wrong and what must be resisted by Christians is when these inequalities of wealth, political power and economic power are used to inflict injustices on others by preventing them living truly human lives.
Christians should be alert to all real injustice, and be eager to remove it, but even so, such action is not of the essence of the gospel, and must not be substituted for it. Jesus himself refused to become arbiter to alleviate what was felt as an injustice when invited to do so by Martha, who believed she was doing too much housework compared to others, or by the brother who wanted a fairer share of the family inheritance.
The Christian gospel deals with things much more important than even human injustices. The wrath of God is infinitely more serious than any suffering inflicted by our fellow men. The gospel is concerned with escape from God’s wrath, and it invites us to be reconciled with God by calling upon the name of Jesus as Lord while it is still the day of salvation. God’s wrath is certain, and every man without exception is justly involved in it. None of us will escape it, except through a living faith in Christ. Because evangelicals are forgetting the awfulness of God’s judgement and its imminence, they are succumbing to the substitute gospel of Christian radicalism which offers the world wholeness instead of rescue.
