Why do Christians believe in proselytization?

It is perfectly true then and agreed, that there is to be a millennial time of blessing on the earth; and the answer to the question how it is to be introduced is this: the same scripture which reveals that blessed change tells us that it is to be brought in by the Lord's coming and smiting the wicked one; in other words by judgment, and not by the preaching of the gospel. The gospel is of all importance for calling souls from earth to heaven; but it is not the means of dealing with the whole world, and filling it with blessing. It is the means of gathering the church out of the world to Christ. When judgment has had its full course, then the Lord will send out His servants. The Lord will give the word, and great will be the company of those that publish it. "Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem." The present dispensation is one of gathering out in separation from the world. The gospel ought to be preached to all but not with the vain hope that all are ever to believe it. Thus the Lord, in Mark 16, while bidding His disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, takes pains to add, "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." He prepares them for an individual and partial reception of it. Thus they would not be cast down, if they found but a few here and there who received the word of life. It might be but a Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. And what were they to the crowds who listened to the apostle on Mars' hill? It was a matter of joy and thankfulness to hear of any who believed to eternal life, for it is thus that God preserves His servants from being cast down. It is well to know that all are not going to receive the gospel, but that God is accomplishing His own purposes. Therefore, when the Lord blesses the word and awakens the conscience of a poor sinner here and there, it is a cause of rejoicing.

But this predicted opening the door so widely to all that call on the name of the Lord gives rise to a new development of the argument. As the Gentiles did not call on the name of Jehovah, a fresh instrumentality begins to appear with a view to awakening them from the dust of death and furnishing such a testimony as should draw out their hearts toward Him. It will be needed by the Israelites scattered up and down the earth among the Gentiles when their hour of national restoration draws nigh; but the Spirit applies it here, as He doubtless intended it, with admirable foresight to the Gentiles meanwhile. They must be called by the gospel in order to call on the name of the Lord for salvation. Preaching is thus eminently characteristic of the ways of God not under law, but since redemption. For "how shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without one preaching? and how shall they preach unless they shall have been sent? According as it is written, How beautiful the feet of those that announce glad tidings of peace, that announce glad tidings of good things!"

Verses 14, 15, vindicate the wisdom of God in making the foolishness of preaching the instrument of His saving power (Compare 1 Cor. 1:21). But the preacher must be sent. Divine truth can be rightly delivered only by those whom God sends. The word preached is His. The souls addressed are His. His messengers proclaim the Gospel of His mercy. But who are thus sent? Firstly, and generally, every Christian who has himself tasted that the Lord is gracious, has both the liberty and the responsibility of "holding forth the word of life" (Phil 2:16). As possessed of the Spirit of God, the heart of a believer is fitted to impart to others a portion of the blessing with which he is himself blessed of God in Christ (John 7:38). "I have sent them into the world," is the Lord's word respecting His disciples, when He was regarding them, not as office-bearing servants in the Church of God, but as the first-fruits of that Divine election of mercy which, in due time, would grow to the completion of the body of Christ. Further, "Let him that hears say, Come" (Rev. 22:17); calling not only on the Lord to come in fulfilment of His promise, — that He may take His own to the prepared mansions of their rest (John 14:3) — but also upon those who may yet be within the hearing of the word of grace; to come ere the day of long-suffering patience be closed, and to take freely of the water of life. But, secondly, evangelists are sent. There are those whom the Spirit of God especially sets apart for the work of evangelism. An evangelist is a gift of Christ (Eph. 4:11). He is sent forth at the will of the Spirit, who empowers him to preach the Gospel to the world. The Church has no power to send evangelists, because the source of evangelism is not the Church, but Christ. An evangelist is an ambassador of Christ. Collectively, the Church in its unity was the world's great evangelist (alas! where is it now?) as the pillar and ground of the truth. Paul and Barnabas may be separated by their brethren for an especial work (Acts 13:2-4), but it is at the express command of the Holy Ghost; and when they go forth it is as sent by Him, and not by the Church. In a word, evangelism, like every other species of ministry, is derived to its vessel immediately from God. It is held, therefore, in responsibility to the Lord, whose servant the minister is. We shall return to the subject of ministry when examining the twelfth chapter. Meanwhile, we have in this passage another quotation from Isaiah, where, if the context be examined, the deliverance of the earthly Jerusalem will be seen, I think, to be the proper subject of the prophecy (Isaiah 52:7). Accordingly, the apostle, having opened to view (as we have seen in the former part of this chapter) the wide range of Gospel grace as now preached, a range limited in its aspect only by the extent of the ruin which it is designed to meet, begins now to view the especial application of this principle to the case of Israel.

But the reason goes deeper. "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who desires that all men should be saved:" speaking now of His gracious willingness. Not His counsels but His nature rises before us. We must be blind if we fail to see that a great point in these epistles is the good and loving nature of God, that would have us look at all men without exception. It is another thing, how far the counsels of God work, how far the effectual work of His grace is applied; but nothing alters God's nature. And this is true both in the spirit of grace that becomes the saints, and also in their zealous care for the glory of God. Hence he says: "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men." This is always the ground and character of the First and Second of Timothy. It is not the Father and His family; it is God and man. And it is not merely God as He once dealt with Israel, for then this Mediator was not. There was a promise, but the Mediator of grace was not come. But now, apart from the heavenly relations that are ours, and much that we know and enjoy by the Holy Ghost in our hearts here below, there is this that needs to be looked after and maintained, that is, the public character — if we may so speak — of the Christian, and that which belongs to him thus broadly before men. It is the testimony of God as a Saviour God, of a God that has to do with men. Accordingly He has revealed Himself in a Mediator. Thus he speaks of Him: "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all, the testimony in its own season. Whereunto I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not), a teacher of Gentiles in faith and truth."

It is important to heed and understand the way in which God is here presented, as in the Epistle to Titus — "God our Saviour," a blessed title of His relation to all mankind. Without this, church government ever tends to be dry and narrow. Timothy was to regard God thus that his heart might be kept large and fresh, notwithstanding the details of care for that assembly in general, or for individuals whatever their position around him. The coming, and above all the cross, of Christ has revealed God in a love that rises above the sins of rebellious and lost man, as decidedly as above the trammels and ordinances of Judaism. Till the people under the law had manifestly and totally failed, the way was not clear for the full revelation of His grace toward man as such. The middle wall of partition stood; the veil was not yet rent. The death of Christ not only broke the last tie with the Jews but opened the door of faith publicly to Gentiles no less than Israel. There is no difference, as in their ruin, so in His grace and redemption for sinners that believe on Him. The law by which God governed Israel tended to give Him the semblance of a national god who cared only for the chosen people. The gospel of His grace makes plain that, after the grand moral experiment for man to learn what he is, God is now displaying Christ for what He is Himself; and He is God our Saviour.

"For this [is] good and acceptable before our Saviour God, Who desireth that all men should be saved and come unto full knowledge (or, acknowledgment) of the truth" (vers. 3, 4). The spirit of the gospel the apostle would have to permeate the conduct as well as the heart of the saint. Activity in goodness becomes those who know our Saviour God, Whose own heart goes out in compassion toward all men, not alone surely in present mercies without number, but also that they might be saved. This however cannot be unless they come to the knowledge of the truth. Hence the gospel is sent out to all the creation. Here human weakness, if it be not worse, betrays itself. Those who believe in the large grace of God too often leave no room for His positive and living links of love with the elect, once children of wrath even as others. Those who are sure of the special nearness of God's family as often overlook what is patent here and elsewhere all over scripture — that love which Christ made known personally and proved triumphantly in His cross whereby it is free to flow out in testimony to all the world.

"Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him" (John 13:31). Now that His character as Judge of sin is vindicated in the expiatory death of His own Son, His love can freely go out to men on the express ground that they are ungodly, enemies, and powerless (Rom. 5:6-10). He is both able and willing to save the vilest, but not without acknowledgment of truth. Therefore He commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel; also the saints, while walking as members of the one body of Christ, are called to walk in love toward all, and to testify the love that can save any by the faith of Christ. If men are lost, it is through their own will opposing the truth; it is not God's will, Who, desiring their salvation, gave His Son, and has now sent His own Spirit from heaven that the glad tidings might be thus declared to them in the power of God our Saviour.

It is here that election does come in; not to limit the provision, nor to restrict in any wise the grace that bids and welcomes all, but to secure the blessing of those who otherwise would refuse and forfeit it as the rest do. The grace to all is not narrowed by the "grace upon grace" to many. The universal offer means and is based on a universal provision, and a provision of exactly the same character for all alike, in which God testifies that He has "no pleasure in the death of him that dies," but "will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." It may be asked, as it has been asked, Of what avail is a provision for all which saves not one additional to the elect number? The answer which Scripture would give is, "What if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith [or faithfulness] of God without effect? God forbid." The salvation of men is from God; the damnation of men is from themselves. This all the pleadings, warnings, offers of God affirm. And grace refused is still grace, and to be proclaimed to His praise.

Subjection to this exhortation of God's Word will preserve Christians from praying according to a narrow nationalism as though God were the God of one nation only, or of one nation and its allies. In former days, when God for His own purposes proclaimed Himself as the God of Israel, it was right for Israel to pray thus, but it is entirely wrong now, for God's attitude towards all men of every nation is the same in this dispensation of grace — He will have all men to be saved — and "there is one God, and one Mediator between GOD AND MEN, the Man Christ Jesus." If we are to pray intelligently and in a way acceptable to God we must pray according to this revelation of Himself, otherwise we falsify His character, and this would be a serious thing for those who belong to His household to do.

Thus a separate and intermediate priesthood characterized Judaism, as on the other hand, for the same reason, what we should call now missionary-work there was none. There was no going out to the world in this way, no provision, no command, to preach the law at all. What, in fact, could they say? that God was in the thick darkness? that no one could see Him and live? It is surely evident there was no "good news" there. Judaism had no true gospel. The absence of the evangelist and the presence of the intermediate priesthood told the same sorrowful story, and were in perfect keeping with each other. Such was Judaism; how different, then, is Christianity! No sooner had the death of Christ rent the vail, and opened a way of access into the presence of God, than at once there was a gospel, and the new order is, "Go out into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." God is making Himself known, and "is He the God of the Jews only?" Can you confine that within the bounds of a nation? No; the fermentation of the new wine would burst the bottles.

We read also that God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Christians are the only people in this dark and sinful world who are qualified to proclaim the Gospel of the grace of God worldwide. This earnest exhortation should make every Christian wish to spread the Gospel, the opportunities for which are boundless. Christians are left in this world for a purpose. Do we fulfil it?