What is an EVANGELICAL?

Some pointers as to what an evangelical is, is the concern of this post.  I have said frequently that this is the age in which defining anything is frowned upon, not only because even the experts are unable to find a definition of something that is inclusive enough to draw support from as wide a grouping as possible, but also because definition by default excludes whatever does not fit in with the definition.

The great fad today is to get as many people as possible on board for a particular cause, and have a broad a base as possible so that we can get the numbers, and then people will sit up and listen. But, this can only be done on the basis of arriving at the lowest common denominator to that particular target group. 

It is something like this that has happened to the precious term, ‘evangelical.’  I say ‘happened;’ that is not strictly correct.  This is something that has been ‘done’ to the term, ‘done’ by choice, by deliberation, as the outworking of a particular strategy, and fore a particular purpose.  That purpose is now clearly discernible, as can be seen in the professing evangelical churches.

What has happened in this: away back in the 19^th century, certain German universities began peddling the idea of ‘higher criticism’ of the Bible.  This was really an attempt to de-God the Bible and to remove everything supernatural, the miraculous, and that which did not accord with human reason. Everything in the Bible had to have a reasonable explanation; it had to have a rational vindication, because clever, thinking people were no longer prepared to accept the old understanding of the miraculous stories which we were taught in Sunday School.  This ‘higher critical’ school of biblical studies was most successful, and many were swept away by it, and numerous ministers lost their faith altogether.

In English Baptist circles, the great preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, voiced his opposition the liberalism that spawned the ‘higher criticism’ school, and was rounded condemned by his evangelical colleagues - Spurgeon’s stand has proved to have been the correct one, and his denomination has suffered almost irreparable damage when it succumbed to theological liberalism.

Then, theological liberals began to latch on to the term, evangelical,’ and threw their weight in behind it.  In fact, the theology of German theologian, Karl Barth (1886-1968), who was the leader of a movement known as Neo-Orthodoxy, and presented what was thought to be a new evangelicalism.  The basis on which this flawed conclusion was reached was Barth’s trenchant criticism of theological liberalism.  Uncritical evangelicals, even within scholarly circles, were unable or unwilling to discern what was happening, and so gave this movement a warm welcome. 

So what this is saying to us is that an evangelical is someone who believes the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired, authoritative, inerrant and infallible Word of God.  It is the revelation of God to sinful mankind in written form.  This Word is to be obeyed and submitted to willingly and constantly.  It is the supreme and only authoritative standard for faith and practice in the church of Christ, all else being woefully inferior to that.

From this flows the fact of the virgin birth of the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, His holy life, His atoning death for the sin of the world, His burial, His triumphant and bodily resurrection from the dead on the third day, and His ascension into heaven, where He sits at the Father’s right hand.  His return to this world to wind up history and to usher in the Final Judgement, of which He has been appointed Judge.  An evangelical believes that God has acted in history in Christ to redeem sinners to Himself, and that by faith in Christ alone may a man be saved.

An evangelical minister, then, believes and preaches the whole counsel of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and assesses everything else against this infallible standard.  He is a Gospel man through and through.  The Gospel not only gave him life, but is his very life.  It is the indispensible message of salvation that the entire world needs to hear and believe. 

These are some of the essentials that define an evangelical.  In fact, these are ‘essentials’ in any definition of an evangelical, others things being secondary.