Reconciling Calvinism with Evangelism

As debates of predestination and free will have lingered and in some instances raged throughout my apartment, car and other places that I may be found, one concept that always comes up is evangelism. More to the point, what role evangelism can play in Calvinism or in a world that is predestined. The usually argument that arises goes along these lines, "If we are predestined and God has already chosen who is going to heaven and who is going to hell, what is the purpose of evangelism?" This thought has honestly had me a bit befuddled, what is the purpose if God will save his elect no matter what? What about Paul? Paul never heard the Gospel, but Jesus came down from the sky, spoke to him and saved him. That is predestination right there, isn't it? No evangelism, simply Jesus knocking you on your butt and saving you. Yes, that is predestination, but this isn't what we are called to, which we see Jesus when gives the Great Commission. I am going to make an interpretation of the Bible that may not be the most educated in order to try and reconcile Calvinism with evangelism.

When people are presented with ideas of Calvinism and the Armenian thought, it can easy to drift in polar opposites. If you look at the Armenian thought and continue to decipher it logically, it can be very easy to wind up down the road at open theism which is considered by many including yours truly to be heretical. On the other side, you can wind up as a hyper-Calvinist where grace abounds, we do not need to worry about how much we sin and we do not need to worry about evangelism because God will do the job for us. This I also disagree with this logic, and think that it goes against what we are called as Christians to do. We are called to flee from sin and in Great Commission, we are called to evangelize. But how do we reconcile these things that seem to make so much sense by themselves, how, or more importantly why should we do both of them? A wise man told me, "We cannot see the invisible church as God sees it, so we do not know who is saved, which leaves us with the responsibility to preach the Gospel as the Bible says." It isn't about us preaching the Gospel and by the work that we are doing necesarily saving people, but it is our duty to present and in a sense bring people to shake the hand of Jesus. I once heard in a movie from a character who was a priest that put it this way, "My job is people, God's job is souls." It isn't for us to save people, it is for God, but it is our job to love people and present them the Gospel.

In reading John I have this feeling in my heart that this is what Jesus is showing us. Mark Driscoll has said, "I work like an Armenian, but I sleep like a Calvinist," to me this means that we do the work of God as though it is our duty to save people, but when we go to sleep at night we know that we cannot save a single soul, that is what is left to God. Whether you side with the Calvinist or Armenian point of view, you probably are a Christian and our purpose as Christians is to live Christ like lives. Continually in chapter 5 of John Jesus opens sentences with, "Truly, Truly, I say to you," in my mind this is Jesus pleading with the people that he is telling the truth. Did everyone believe in Jesus the moment he started his minsitry? No. Jesus had to work painfully and tirelessly in order to bring people to salvation. He was working that people might know the truth of who he was that they might know eternal life. He was evangelizing, and if we are meant to live Christ like lives, how can we ignore this or the Great Commission?

Does this mean that we can save people if we preach them the Gospel and it is their choice to make? By no means! John also writes this in the same chapter 5:21 "For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will." Saying that ultimately, it is up to God the Father and God the Son to save whom they want to save. It is not of our doing, it is not of our choice, our choice was to sin and we made it, but it is of God.

Thus we must evangelize, but we also must not be frustrated if those we preach to do not get saved, because "Salvation belongs to the Lord!" (Jonah 2:9)