Tracing the Story of Evangelism from Creation to the Church

Participation in the Gospel

Evangelism is explaining the gospel to a person who is not yet following Jesus so that he or she might obediently respond by turning from sin, trusting in Christ, and beginning a lifelong journey of following the Lord.

There are countless ways God could accomplish the work of evangelism, but he graciously uses us. He gives us the opportunity to deepen our relationship with him as we participate in gospel proclamation. When we share the gospel, we’re reminded of his grace in our own lives, we’re filled with gratitude for the sovereign mercy he shows sinners, and we experience the joy of obediently testifying to his love.

Evangelism in the Scriptures

The theme of God’s good news for sinners is woven throughout the entire Bible.

Creation

The Bible first mentions the gospel long before Christ’s incarnation. After the serpent tempted them, Adam and Eve sinned by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God cursed the serpent, and then he added a promise:

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
     and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Gen. 3:15)

In this passage, we find the first mention of the gospel, also called the protevangelium. God announced that he would provide a solution for sin. Adam and Eve’s treasonous act had devastating consequences for themselves and for all humanity. But the story did not end there. God put Satan on notice. He warned him that a serpent destroyer would one day come. Jesus, the promised Messiah, would be bruised, but through his death and resurrection, he would crush the serpent’s head, thereby saving sinners from God’s eternal wrath (Heb. 2:14–15; 1 John 3:8).

Law

Evangelism often takes place within families. We see an early mention of this practice in the book of Deuteronomy. Moses instructed the people to teach God’s word to their children:

You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deut. 11:18–19)

Talking about God and his promises was to be a natural daily rhythm for the Israelites as they raised their children. They were to be ready with an answer whenever their children asked them why they followed the Lord, recounting the mercy and salvation of God (Deut. 6:20–25; cf. 1 Pet. 3:15).

Psalms

Many Psalms command the declaration and proclamation of God’s mighty works. The psalmist wrote,

Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
      tell of his salvation from day to day. (Ps. 96:2)

Christians have the privilege and responsibility of teaching others about God. In Psalm 145:4 we read,

One generation shall commend your works to another,
     and shall declare your mighty acts.

The gospel is God’s greatest work, and we as his people must proclaim it.

Prophets

In a sense, the prophets were the evangelists of their day. Oftentimes they declared a message of future judgment on evildoers, but they also pronounced hope. Micah, for example, indicted the people for their terrible sins but closed his prophecy by proclaiming God’s future salvation:

He will again have compassion on us;
     he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
     into the depths of the sea. (Mic. 7:19)

Malachi warned that evildoers would perish on the day of the Lord (Mal. 4:1) but predicted blessing when he declared, “For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings” (Mal. 4:2). And hundreds of years before it happened, Jesus’s crucifixion was foretold by Isaiah:

But he was pierced for our transgressions;
     he was crushed for our iniquities
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace;
     and with his wounds we are healed. (Isa. 53:5)

The prophets declared the promise of future salvation. We declare that the promise has been fulfilled in Christ.

Christians have the privilege and responsibility to make Christ known everywhere.

Jesus

Jesus provided a model for our evangelism. He began his ministry in Galilee proclaiming, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). When the Pharisee Nicodemus came to him, Jesus explained that in order to receive eternal life, one must be born again through the Spirit (John 3:1–15). And when a crowd asked Jesus how to obey God, he told them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:29).

Even more, our great commission to evangelize comes directly from Jesus. He declared,

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt. 28:18–20)

Evangelism is not optional. Christians have the privilege and responsibility to make Christ known everywhere.

New Testament Church

Before Jesus ascended to heaven, he told his followers that they would be his “witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The book of Acts provides examples of how the early church obeyed this call to evangelism. Philip climbed into an Ethiopian eunuch’s chariot and told him the “good news about Jesus” before preaching the gospel to all the surrounding towns (Acts 8:26–40). Immediately after his conversion, Paul began proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues (Acts 9:18–20). After receiving a vision from God, Peter shared the gospel with a group gathered at Cornelius’s home and witnessed the first recorded Gentile conversions (Acts 10:9–48). Christians are expected to carry on Jesus’s work of proclaiming the gospel to the world.

The End of Evangelism

Since humanity’s fall, evangelism has been about God saving sinners to create a people for himself. But evangelism is temporary. We currently live in an “overlap of the ages” because, while Christ’s incarnation has already fulfilled the promise of redemption and ushered in the last days, we still wait for the final restoration that has not yet arrived.¹ During this time, we must proclaim the hope of salvation. But the end of the age will eventually come, and on that day, believers will be saved and unbelievers lost. There will be no additional opportunities to repent (Heb. 9:27). The first heaven and earth will pass away, and God will create a new heavens and a new earth (Rev. 21:1) where righteousness will reign. He will dwell there with his people, and he will be their God forever (Rev. 21:3).

This article is adapted from Evangelism by Sharonda Cooper.

Related Articles