Basic idea: When you are doing evangelism, you are, by definition, doing something to represent both God’s transcendence and his immanence. You are speaking authoritatively true things about God’s work in Christ (transcendence) to fellow humans and sinners (immanence). You are issuing an authoritative call (“repent and believe”) to people who are just like you.

Biblical basis: In the incarnation itself we see how God’s evangelistic activity presents itself both transcendently and immanently. In all the Scriptural material related to Christ’s work as king (transcendent) and priest (immanent) we see both postures, as well as in the identity of the church as a “royal priesthood.” We see it in the Scriptural idea of the church being in but not of the world. And this list could continue.

Wise evangelism: What’s especially worth observing here is that doing evangelism well requires us to give attention to both postures. There’s a place to say, “Hey, I’m a sinner, too” (immanence). And there’s a place to say, “God calls you to repent and believe” (transcendence). All the talk these days about “contexualization” and “cultural engagement,” as well as perennial questions about Bible translation, stems from the desire to do the immanent posture well. And the talk about making sure we are clear about the unique gospel message, the need for conversion, and the distinct witness of the local church (involving things like church membership and church discipline) stem from the desire to do the transcendent posture well. 

In short, I’d say good evangelism involves both empathy and relatability (immanence) and confrontation (transcendence).

Know thyself: Personalities and cultures incline us toward one posture or another. Socially attuned people are good at the empathetic posture. Truth people are good at the transcendent posture. Likewise, cultures can lean one way or the other. I believe Western culture today leans heavily toward the empathetic and relational posture. We’re afraid to confront. Our philosophies as well our sense of manners tells us that it’s “wrong” and “inappropriate” to confront. Even among evangelicals, “relational evangelism,” several decades ago, occurred as an immanent reaction against the heavy transcendence of “contact evangelism.”  These days, evangelicals don’t even like to talk about “evangelism” and “conversion.” We like to talk about “kingdom building” and “conversation.” This shouldn’t be surprising, though, since we also don’t like talking about God’s transcendence or authority.

Lessons from a bad evangelist: In short, it’s easy to lean too far in one direction or the other, which I know quite well from personal experience. I try to be faithful in evangelism, which I think is the most important thing. But I don’t consider myself a very good evangelist, and one way I can see this is that I often veer too far in one direction or another.

1) We can be too immanent—too empathetic. Sometimes, I have let either fear of man or worldly wisdom impel me toward avoiding sharing the gospel’s command with someone (“God calls you to repent and believe”). I focus too much on “relating” or “being understanding” or “talking in their language” or “giving my testimony” or just not being weird. So I’ll put everything in terms of my personal experience, which has a way of playing into our culture’s happy acceptance of the subjective. It’s a little scarier to put things in terms of authoritative universal truth and to use the second-person pronoun “you.” But we must warn people of the jeopardy they are in! It’s only a demonic blindness which keeps us from seeing this.

I once shared the gospel with a man sitting next to me on an airplane, and he was very interested in what I was saying in part (I think) because I was very forthright about the gospel’s relevance to him. As it turned out, he worked six blocks from where I work. So we agreed to get together for lunch. We did have lunch a couple of times, but then he lost interest. There could be many reasons why he lost interest, but in my own post-game analysis it occurred to me that I began to care about what he thought of me, and I began defaulting toward the purely empathetic. I wanted to seem “normal” and “like him.” But when an evangelist is “all empathy,” there’s no longer any unique message to share! If you’re just like me, why should I listen to you?

2) We can be too transcendent—too confrontational.  Sometimes, I have plowed into an evangelistic encounter motivated only by a sense of duty rather than by love. Christians do have a duty to evangelize, but when we act in duty and not in compassionate love, we tend to be doing it for legalistic, merit-earning reasons (at least I do). When we’re focused only on the transcendent, authoritative truth, we can forget we’re sinners just like them. And we enter the conversation somewhat self-righteously.

I once shared the gospel with a cab driver in the last minute or so of the cab ride. Right before I got out of the car, I told him that one day he would stand before God and give an account, and that he needed to be ready for that day because God would judge his sin. Now, I honestly do think that something like that needs to be said from time to time in evangelism. On that occasion, however, I know my heart was motivated not by love but duty. The Lord may well use those words for good in that driver’s life; but generally speaking I would not encourage people to evangelize by walking up to someone they don’t know and telling them the wrath of God is coming (but Jonah?).

3) Compassionately confront; empathically urge.  My guess is that most evangelicals these days need to be reminded of the confrontational or transcendent aspects of evangelism. I say this in part because it feels like everyone is talking about the relational, contextualizing, and immanent aspects of evangelism. And, sure, good pastoral sense should tell us that there are times to lean more toward one posture or another. The more immature and hard-hearted a person is, the more empathy and immanence is required (sometimes). And our culture is, in many ways, hard-hearted and immature. Still, we must remember to confront and to empathize.

Don’t we all think of the apostle Paul as the exemplar of both? Of course, I’m no Paul. The great news for me is that God can use even donkeys to speak his words.