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BasicChristianity.book Page 15 Friday, October 20, 2006 9:50 AM15The Right Approachto do anything; it is supremely a declaration of what God hasdone in Christ for human beings like ourselves.GOD HAS SPOKENMan is an insatiably inquisitive creature. His mind is so madethat it cannot rest. It is always prying into the unknown. He pursues knowledge with restless energy. His life is a voyage of discovery. He is always questing, exploring, investigating, researching. He never grows out of the child’s interminable “Why?”When man’s mind begins to concern itself with God, however, it is baffled. It gropes in the dark. It flounders helplesslyout of its depth. Nor is this surprising, because God, whateveror whoever he may be, is infinite, while we are finite creatures.He is altogether beyond our comprehension. Therefore ourminds, though wonderfully effective instruments in the empirical sciences, cannot immediately help us here. They cannotclimb up into the infinite mind of God. There is no ladder, onlya vast, unmeasured gulf. “Can you find out the deep things ofGod?” Job was asked. It is impossible.And so the situation would have remained if God had nottaken the initiative to remedy it. Man would have remained forever agnostic, asking indeed with Pontius Pilate, “What istruth?” but never staying for an answer, because never daring tohope that he would receive one. He would be a worshiper, forsuch is his nature; but all his altars would be inscribed, like theone in Athens, “To an unknown god.”But God has spoken. He has taken the initiative to disclosehimself. The Christian doctrine of revelation is essentially reasonable. God has “unveiled” to our minds what would otherwise

BasicChristianity.book Page 16 Friday, October 20, 2006 9:50 AM16BASIC CHRISTIANITYhave been hidden from them. Part of his revelation is in nature:“The heavens are telling the glory of God;and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.”“What can be known about God is plain to them [that is,men], because God has shown it to them. Ever since thecreation of the world his invisible nature, namely, hiseternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in thethings that have been made.”3This is commonly called God’s “general” revelation (becauseit is made to all men everywhere) or “natural” revelation (becauseit is in nature). But this is not enough. It certainly makes knownhis existence, and something of his divine power, glory and faithfulness. But if man is to come to know God personally, to havehis sins forgiven and to enter into relationship with God, heneeds a more extensive and practical revelation still. God’s selfdisclosure must include his holiness, his love and his power tosave from sin. This too God has been pleased to give. It is a “special” revelation, because it was made to a special people (Israel)through special messengers (prophets in the Old Testament andapostles in the New).It is also “supernatural” because it was given through a process commonly called “inspiration,” and it found its chiefexpression in the person and work of Jesus.The way in which the Bible explains and describes this revelation is to say that God has “spoken.” We ourselves communicate with one another most easily by speech. It is by our words3Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:19-20.

BasicChristianity.book Page 17 Friday, October 20, 2006 9:50 AMThe Right Approach17that we disclose what is in our minds. This is even more true ofGod who has desired to reveal his infinite mind to our finiteminds. Since, as the prophet Isaiah put it, his thoughts are asmuch higher than our thoughts as the heavens are higher thanthe earth, we could never have come to know them unless hehad clothed them in words. So “the word of the Lord came” tomany prophets, until at last Jesus Christ came, and “the Wordbecame flesh and dwelt among us.”4Similarly, Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, “since, inthe wisdom of God, the world did not know God throughwisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preachto save those who believe.” Man comes to know God notthrough his own wisdom but through God’s Word (“what wepreach”), not through human reason but through divine revelation. It is because God has made himself known in Christthat the Christian can boldly go to the agnostic and the superstitious and say to them, as Paul did to the Athenians on theAreopagus, “What therefore you worship as unknown, this Iproclaim to you.”Much of the controversy between science and religion hasarisen through a failure to appreciate this point. The empiricalmethod is largely inappropriate in the sphere of religion. Scientific knowledge advances through observation and experiment.It works on data supplied by the five physical senses. But whenwe inquire into the metaphysical, no data are immediately available. God today is neither tangible, visible nor audible. Yet therewas a time when he chose to speak, and to clothe himself witha body which could be seen and touched. So John began his first4John 1:1, 14.

BasicChristianity.book Page 18 Friday, October 20, 2006 9:50 AM18BASIC CHRISTIANITYepistle with the claim, “That which was from the beginning,which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, whichwe have looked upon and touched with our hands . . . we proclaim also to you.”GOD HAS ACTEDThe Christian good news is not confined to a declaration thatGod has spoken. It also affirms that God has acted.God has taken the initiative in both these ways because of thecharacter of man’s need. For we are not only ignorant; we aresinful. It is not sufficient therefore that God should have revealed himself to us to dispel our ignorance. He must also takeaction to save us from our sins. He began in Old Testament days.He called Abraham from Ur, making of him and his descendantsa nation, delivering them from slavery in Egypt, entering into acovenant with them at Mount Sinai, leading them across thedesert into the Promised Land, guiding and teaching them as hisspecial people.But all this was a preparation for his greater deed of redemption in Christ. Men needed to be delivered, not from slavery inEgypt or from exile in Babylon, but from the exile and the slavery of sin. It was for this principally that Jesus Christ came. Hecame as a Savior.“You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his peoplefrom their sins.”“The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, thatChrist Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”“For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.”

BasicChristianity.book Page 19 Friday, October 20, 2006 9:50 AM19The Right ApproachHe was like the shepherd who missed the only sheep whichwas lost from the flock and went out to search until he found it.5Christianity is a religion of salvation, and there is nothingin the non-Christian religions to compare with this message ofa God who loved, and came after, and died for, a world of lostsinners.MAN’S RESPONSEGod has spoken. God has acted. The record and interpretation of these divine words and deeds is to be found in the Bible.And there for many people they remain. As far as they are concerned, what God has said and done belongs to past history; ithas not yet come out of history into experience, out of the Bibleinto life. God has spoken; but have we listened to his word? Godhas acted; but have we benefited from what he has done?What we must do will be explained in the rest of this book. Atthis stage it is necessary to make only one point: we must seek.God has sought us. He is still seeking us. We must seek him. Indeed, God’s chief quarrel with man is that he does not seek.“The Lord looks down from heavenupon the children of men,to see if there are any that act wisely,that seek after God.They have all gone astray, they are all alike corrupt;there is none that does good,no, not one.”65Matthew 1:21; 1 Timothy 1:15; Luke 19:10; 15:3-7.Psalm 14:2-3.6

BasicChristianity.book Page 20 Friday, October 20, 2006 9:50 AM20BASIC CHRISTIANITYYet Jesus promised: “Seek and you will find.” If we do notseek, we shall never find. The shepherd searched until he foundthe lost sheep. The woman searched until she found her lostcoin. Why should we expect to do less? God desires to be found,but only by those who seek him.We must seek diligently. “Man is as lazy as he dares to be,”wrote Emerson. But this matter is so serious that we must overcome our natural laziness and apathy and give our minds to thequest. God has little patience with triflers; “he rewards thosewho seek him.”7We must seek humbly. If apathy is a hindrance to some, prideis an even greater and commoner hindrance to others. We mustacknowledge that our minds, being finite, are incapable of discovering God by their own effort without his self-revelation. Iam not saying that we should suspend rational thinking. On thecontrary, we are told by the psalmist not to be like a horse or amule which have no understanding. We must use our mind; butwe must also admit its limitation. Jesus said,“I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thouhast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes.”It is one of the reasons why Jesus loved children. They areteachable. They are not proud, self-important and critical. Weneed the open, humble and receptive mind of a little child.We must seek honestly. We must come to what claims to beGod’s self-revelation not only without pride, but without prejudice; not only with a humble mind, but with an open mind.7Hebrews 11:6.

BasicChristianity.book Page 21 Friday, October 20, 2006 9:50 AMThe Right Approach21Every student knows the dangers of approaching his subjectwith preconceived ideas. Yet many inquirers come to the Biblewith their minds already made up. But God’s promise is addressed only to the earnest seeker: “You will seek me and findme; when you seek me with all your heart.”8 So we must layaside our prejudice and open our minds to the possibility thatChristianity may after all be true.We must seek obediently. This is the hardest condition of allto fulfill. In seeking God we have to be prepared not only to revise our ideas but to reform our lives. The Christian message hasa moral challenge. If the message is true, the moral challenge hasto be accepted. So God is not a fit object for man’s detachedscrutiny. You cannot fix God at the end of a telescope or a microscope and say “How interesting!” God is not interesting. Heis deeply upsetting. The same is true of Jesus Christ.We had thought intellectually to examine him; we find heis spiritually examining us. The roles are reversed betweenus. . . . We study Aristotle and are intellectually edifiedthereby; we study Jesus and are, in the profoundest way,spiritually disturbed. . . . We are constrained to take upsome inward moral attitude of heart and will in relation tothis Jesus. . . . A man may study Jesus with intellectual impartiality, he cannot do it with moral neutrality. . . . Wemust declare our colours. To this has our unevasive contactwith Jesus brought us. We began it in the calm of the study;we are called out to the field of moral decision.98Jeremiah 29:13.P. Carnegie Simpson, The Fact of Christ, 1930; James Clarke edition, 1952,pp. 23, 24.9

BasicChristianity.book Page 22 Friday, October 20, 2006 9:50 AM22BASIC CHRISTIANITYThis is what Jesus meant when, addressing some unbelievingJews, he said, “If any man’s will is to do his [that is, God’s] will,he shall know whether the teaching is from God or whether Iam speaking on my own authority.” The promise is clear: we canknow whether Jesus Christ was true or false, whether his teaching was human or divine. But the promise rests on a moral condition. We have to be ready not just to believe, but to obey. Wemust be prepared to do God’s will when he makes it known.I remember a young man coming to see me when he had justleft school and begun work in London. He had given up goingto church, he said, because he could not say the Creed withoutbeing a hypocrite. He no longer believed it. When he had finished his explanations, I said to him, “If I were to answer yourproblems to your complete intellectual satisfaction, would yoube willing to alter your manner of life?” He smiled slightly andblushed. His real problem was not intellectual but moral.This, then, is the spirit in which our search must be conducted. We must cast aside apathy, pride, prejudice and sin, andseek God in scorn of the consequences. Of all these hindrancesto effective search the last two are the hardest to overcome, intellectual prejudice and moral self-will. Both are expressions offear, and fear is the greatest enemy of the truth. Fear paralyzesour search. We know that to find God and to accept Jesus Christwould be a very inconvenient experience. It would involve therethinking of our whole outlook on life and the readjustment ofour whole manner of life. And it is a combination of intellectualand moral cowardice which makes us hesitate. We do not findbecause we do not seek. We do not seek because we do not wantto find, and we know that the way to be certain of not finding isnot to seek.

BasicChristianity.book Page 23 Friday, October 20, 2006 9:50 AMThe Right Approach23So be open to the possibility that you may be wrong. Christmay in fact be true. And if you want to be a humble, honest,obedient seeker after God, come to the book which claims to behis revelation. Come particularly to the Gospels which tell thestory of Jesus Christ. Give him a chance to confront you withhimself and to authenticate himself to you. Come with the fullconsent of your mind and will, ready to believe and obey if Godbrings conviction to you. Why not read through the Gospel ofMark, or John? You could read either one through at a sitting(preferably in a modern translation), to let it make its total impact on you. Then you could re-read it slowly, a chapter a day.Before you read, pray—perhaps something like this:“God, if you exist (and I don’t know if you do), and if you canbear this prayer (and I don’t know if you can), I want to tellyou that I am an honest seeker after the truth. Show me ifJesus is your Son and the Savior of the world. And if you bringconviction to my mind, I will trust him as my Savior and follow him as my Lord.”No one can pray such a prayer and be disappointed. God is noman’s debtor. He honors all earnest search. He rewards all honestseekers. Christ’s promise is plain: “Seek and you will find.”

Title: Basic Christianity Author: John Stott Created Date: 10/20/2006 9:52:06 AM