Seeking Truth in Today's Troubled World

Christianity is often presented as if it were a public park. There are signs that read “open to all,” and a smiling docent at the gate inviting every passerby to stroll inside. The Scripture that stands like a banner over the entrance is John 3:16, and rightly so. Yet if we walk a little farther into the text of Scripture, we find that the path forks. One road is wide, easy, and much traveled; the other is narrow, hard, and sparsely kept. Our Lord said the wide road leads to destruction and many enter by it, while the narrow way leads to life and few find it (Matthew 7:13–14). The sign at the gate is not contradicted by the narrow path, but it is clarified by it. The love of God is as wide as the world, yet the salvation of God is walked by the few whom He calls.

The Bible’s word for this is election. God chose a people for Himself before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and blameless before Him in love, having predestined them for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will (Ephesians 1:4–5). Those whom He chose He also calls in time. Those He calls He justifies, and those He justifies He glorifies (Romans 8:30). The sequence is not an accident. It is a chain that runs from eternity to eternity, forged by God’s purpose. When Jesus speaks about His own mission, He speaks this way. All that the Father gives Him will come to Him, and whoever comes to Him He will never cast out (John 6:37). No one can come to Him unless the Father who sent Him draws him, and He will raise him up on the last day (John 6:44). Again He says that no one can come unless it is granted him by the Father (John 6:65). The gate is open, the call is proclaimed, yet only those whom the Father draws actually enter. That is not snobbery. It is grace protecting its own name.

If this offends our modern ear, it is partly because we assume that the human heart is a neutral chooser, a sensible judge standing before two doors. Scripture denies that portrait. None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God (Romans 3:10–11). The mind set on the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to His law; indeed it cannot (Romans 8:7–8). Left to ourselves, we do not choose God. We dodge Him. We fashion idols more compliant than the living God, then call that liberty. God often answers this rebellion by handing people over to the desires they insist on having. He gives them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. He gives them up to dishonorable passions. He gives them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done (Romans 1:24–28). If you want an altar to self, He will let you worship there. This is a terrible permission, but it is just. The darkness we love becomes the darkness that binds.

If there is to be salvation, it cannot begin with our willingness, because our willingness is the disease. It must begin with God’s summons. The gospel is not merely an idea placed on a shelf for curious shoppers. It is the heralded announcement of a King whose voice wakes the dead. When the Shepherd calls, His sheep hear His voice, He knows them, and they follow Him. Those who do not believe, He says, are not of His sheep (John 10:26–27). In Antioch of Pisidia, as many as were appointed to eternal life believed (Acts 13:48). Many are called by the outward proclamation, but few are chosen in the effectual sense that opens the ear and bends the knee in joy (Matthew 22:14). The club is exclusive precisely because entrance is a miracle.

At this point someone will quote John 3:16 again, as if it erased the narrow path. But John 3:16 does not flatten the rest of Scripture. God loves the world, which is to say He loves without respect to tribe or rank or nation, and He gives His Son that whoever believes should not perish but have eternal life. The text tells us who receives life, the believer, and the rest of Scripture tells us how such belief comes to be. Faith itself is the gift of God, not a work that any might boast (Ephesians 2:8–9). The wind blows where it wishes, you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (John 3:8). The love is real, the offer is sincere, the proclamation is universal, yet the new birth is sovereign. The door stands open, but dead men do not walk through doors until the Lord speaks, “Live.”

Now comes the objection that such teaching kills evangelism. If God has a remnant according to the election of grace, why preach, why plead, why pray. The apostles did not share that anxiety. They preached everywhere. They endured beatings and prisons and shipwrecks. They reasoned in synagogues and marketplaces. They knew that the Lord had many people in Corinth before those people knew the Lord at all, and this assurance made them bold to stay and speak (Acts 18:9–11). The doctrine of election does not smother missions. It makes missions meaningful. We preach Christ to all because God commands it, and because through that preaching He calls His own. The net is cast far and wide. The Master knows every fish it was meant to gather.

There is a sobriety that flows from this. The way is narrow and few find it. We should weep before we argue. We should plead before we sneer. None of us climbed into this grace. We were carried. If we are part of the remnant, we are not the superior ones among the masses. We are the surprised guests at the King’s table, people from the highways and hedges wearing borrowed wedding garments. Boasting is excluded. Gratitude is required.

There is also hope here for the church that grows weary of marketing God. The world does not need a softer cross. It needs a living Christ. The Lord does not ask us to make Christianity easy. He calls us to tell the truth about the cost of discipleship and the joy set before those who lose their lives for His sake. If we say that following Jesus means denying self, taking up the cross, and obeying all He commanded, some will turn back. They turned from Him too when He spoke of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. He did not chase them with a discount. He asked His disciples if they would leave as well. They answered as all the called eventually must. “Lord, to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:53–69).

To the question of fairness, Scripture answers with a deeper question. Who are you, O man, to answer back to God. Shall the thing formed say to Him who formed it, why have you made me like this. God has mercy on whom He wills, and He hardens whom He wills, yet He is never unjust (Romans 9:14–23). There is mystery here. There is also mercy. If God left all to their chosen idols, none would be saved. That He saves any is grace. That He saves a multitude no one can number from every nation is glory.

What then shall we do. First, tremble. The path to destruction is crowded, and it is terribly cheerful. It is paved with the slogans of a freedom that despises God, and many who walk it imagine that they are wise. The depraved mind does not seek God, and God allows multitudes to pursue the worship they crave. Second, ask. If you can still ask, do so. “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6). The very desire to call on Him may be the first knock of grace. Third, proclaim. The church is not tasked with sorting the elect. We are tasked with heralding a crucified and risen Christ to every creature, trusting that the Shepherd will find every last sheep He bought with His blood.

Call Christianity an exclusive club if you like, but do not miss what makes it so. It is exclusive because grace is particular, because love has names, because the Shepherd knows His own. It is exclusive in its entrance, yet expansive in its design. The nations will walk by the Lamb’s light. The meek will inherit the earth. The wedding hall will be full. Every chair will be occupied by someone who once was dead and now lives because God called his name.

The world may say this is harsh. The Bible calls it mercy. The path is narrow, and many refuse it. Yet the One who stands at the head of that path still says, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). The rest is real, and the call is effectual, and the glory is God’s.

In Christ’s service,

~JFH