The Great Commission
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19-20).
As Christians, we are all called to share our faith with unbelievers. Often referred to as the great commission, Jesus' direct command to the apostles was to go and make disciples. We can see them fulfilling that commission in the pages of the New Testament by telling others about Jesus and His life-saving sacrifice on the cross. As Paul said, "...when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified" (2 Corinthians 2:1-2).
But this commission to share the good news is not just for apostles, evangelists, and pastors. Everyday Christians are also called to share their faith. The Apostle Peter instructed the New Testament Church at large to be "...always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you..." (1 Peter 3:15). Our faithful lives are intended to shine so conspicuously that others who see us will want to know our secret. The phrase, "make a defense" is translated from the Greek word, apologia, which essentially means to give a reason for. We should all be ready to explain to unbelievers where our hope comes from. Of course, that is just us telling other people about Jesus.
So we don't need to have a high office in the church or a doctorate in theology to carry out Jesus' commission. In fact, the very disciples whom Jesus' chose to build the church were mostly simple fishermen and tradesmen, yet they were turning the world upside down with their powerful witness. In His wisdom, God actually prefers to work through people who are lowly in the world's estimation as it is a more powerful testament to His glory. "...consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things that are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God" (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).
One of my favorite witnesses for Jesus is the Samaritan woman who met Jesus at the well. In every sense, she was a lowly outcast in society, yet after personally and powerfully experiencing Jesus, her simple testimony led many from her village to salvation. Samaritans were hated by Israelites and shunned as half-breeds and outsiders. Moreover, this woman had been married and divorced five times, and was now openly living with a man whom she didn't even bother to marry. That is why she went to the well at noon, to avoid the sideways glances and judgmental stares of the crowds which went to the well in the cool morning or evening hours, not in the blistering heat of midday.
After a powerful encounter with the Lord, she ran back to her village and simply told them about meeting Him and invited them to come and see for themselves. "So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and said to the men, 'Come, see a man who told me all the things that I {have} done; this is not the Christ, is it?' They went out of the city, and were coming to Him. From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified..." (John 4:28-30, 39). We may not be as learned as Paul or as eloquent as Apollos, but we can all share our experience of Jesus and invite others to come and see for themselves; and as we see in Scripture, your personal testimony can be very powerful and effective.
You Will Encounter Self-Described Atheists
When I was first saved in the spring of 1990, I was going to college for my business degree. It was there that I started witnessing to people who described themselves as atheists. Some were professors, others were fellow students. All of them said the same thing, there was simply not enough evidence to convince them that God exists.
Being young and inexperienced, I began to gather and share with them all of the vast evidence about the veracity of scripture and the life and resurrection of Jesus figuring that once they saw how overwhelming and convincing it is, they would immediately believe and seek to be saved themselves. But, no matter how much evidence I presented or how tenuous and untenable their assertions were shown to be, they all bitterly adhered to their unbelief. Sadly, they demonstrated that rather than lacking evidence, they actually lacked a desire to believe in God, usually because they preferred to act as their own gods and didn't want to answer to anyone.
That is when I began to see that atheists don't really exist. The term atheist means someone who simply lacks belief in God. But as experience and the Word of God would reveal to me, nobody really falls into that category. People are either protheists, meaning they love and surrender to God; or they are antitheists meaning they reject and ignore Him. In short, God exists and everyone knows it. We may choose to embrace or suppress that knowledge, but we all have it. The dividing line, then, runs not between those who know and don't know; but between those who are for and those who are against Him.
Consider this confession from Professor of Philosophy and Law, Thomas Nagel, "I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I am right in my belief. It's that I hope that there is no God! I don't want there to be a God..." (The Last Word, pp.130-131).
Christian author, Oxford professor, and one-time self proclaimed atheist C.S. Lewis confessed in his autobiographical book, Surprised By Joy, "I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry at God for not existing. I was equally angry at Him for creating a world." That admission is very revealing. It matches what I have witnessed myself in watching the most famous modern antitheists in their public debates. While they openly claim not to believe in God, they all seem to simultaneously be very angry at Him. But who gets angry with people who don't exist? Their claim to disbelieve is belied by their obvious hostility towards God.
No excuse
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures" (Romans 1:18-23).
Here God is explaining through the Apostle Paul that everyone, deep down, really does know that God exists, so that no one will be able to offer an excuse for their Godless living on the day of judgment. Rather than being ignorant, that is to say unknowing or unaware of God, they have knowledge that He exists because He has made himself so undeniably apparent in all of His creation, but they choose to suppress that truth by practicing unrighteousness (that which transgresses God's instructions).
The evidence not just that God exists, but of His immense power and wisdom, is everywhere manifested in what He has made. If someone presented this article to you and said, "Yeah, there is no author. It just randomly came into to existence out of nothing for no reason," you would think they were making a joke, or perhaps they were mentally ill. No reasonable person would actually believe such nonsense. We all know that articles require authors.
In the same way, God has given ample evidence that He exists and what He is like in the creation itself. Scientists have recently (albeit reluctantly) acknowledged that the universe, that is space, time, mass, and energy came into existence a finite time ago. Something, by the way, they could have understood from the pages of Genesis if they hadn't wanted so desperately to disregard the teachings of the Bible as well as the existence of its Author. So what properties would the cause have to possess in order to produce an effect like the cosmos?
It would have to be immaterial to bring matter into existence. It would have to be eternal to produce time. It would have to be immensely powerful to bring all energy into being. It would also have to be unimaginably intelligent to engineer and finely tune all of the laws and constants by which the universe operates. Finally, it would have to be a personal agent because it always existed, but chose to produce the universe a finite time ago. If it weren't a personal agent, with the power and ability to make choices, the effect would necessarily exist simultaneously with the cause.
So just by observing the creation, any person can be (and absent an active effort to suppress the knowledge every person actually is) aware that the Creator is an eternal, immensely powerful, astonishingly intelligent, immaterial, person. Now ask yourself honestly who that describes, if not the God of the Bible?
Men Loved the Darkness
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed" (John 3:16-20).
So far we have seen that God's existence and what He is like is known to all people because the evidence is so obvious and abundant in the creation itself that no one can honestly claim ignorance. But to call yourself an atheist, you have to push away evidence that is much more personal and gives a much richer and fuller picture of who God is and what He is like.
You see, God didn't just create the universe, wind it up, and then stand apart from it like the desists watchmaker hypothesis. Because He loves every person He has ever made and does not want anyone to perish because of their Godless living (sin), He sent His Son Jesus to live a perfect sinless life, die a horrific torturous death on the cross, rise physically from the grave, and be glorified so that our sins can be forgiven and we can receive the promise of eternal glory at the resurrection. That is the heart of the gospel, Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Now we have the record of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection in the pages of the Bible, in peripheral histories, and in the archeological evidence of His empty tomb which is abundantly available to almost everyone through the wonders of the internet. Most people claiming to be atheists have not examined this evidence thoroughly, as it would be very dangerous to the security of their position. Many of those who embark on such a perilous journey, like C.S. Lewis or former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and self-described former atheist Lee Strobel , find themselves not just theists, but full-fledged Christians by the end of the trip.
As the scripture above indicates, Jesus' life demonstrates the unfathomable love of God, and the extraordinary lengths to which He is willing to go in order to rescue us from the destruction we have brought on ourselves through our participation, both witting and unwitting, in ignoring Him and going our own way. Rather than simply leave us to our fate, He decided to suffer immeasurably, watching His only Son be betrayed, tortured, mocked, openly shamed, and murdered on a cross so that He could justly offer us mercy and forgiveness.
As Jesus said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father..." (John 14:9). We see His compassion in healing the sick, making the lame to walk, giving sight to the blind, feeding the multitudes, and weeping with the bereft and downtrodden. That is a much deeper revelation of what God is like than just knowing that He is eternal, powerful, intelligent, personal, and immaterial. He is kind, humble, gentle, merciful, and loves you personally beyond your greatest hopes or wildest imaginings.
Why would we ever refuse to love someone who so openly and extravagantly demonstrates His love for us? The passage above shows us the heart of the matter. Jesus is the light of the world. While He perfectly shows us the Love of God, His holiness and righteousness reveal the depth of our sin and depravity. Those who choose to love Him and those who choose to reject Him are both deeply convicted of their guilt. In response to that conviction, Christians turn away from their sin and run to Jesus loving arms to receive His mercy, and grace. When antitheists feel that conviction, they turn away from Jesus' love, and run to the arms of their sin to receive deception and eternal destruction.
So why do people choose to reject Jesus? Because they love darkness and fear the light because it would expose their wickedness.
Strong Delusion
" Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness' (2 Thesselonians 2:8-12).
No one, of course, knows everything. Actually, if we compiled all that we know in one book, and all that we don't into another, our book of ignorance would be immeasurably bigger than our book of knowledge. That is true of our knowledge of God the Father, and Jesus as well. As Paul said, right now we see as in a mirror dimly; we know God only in part (1 Corinthians 13:12). But we do know enough to love or ignore, embrace or reject Him.
The crucial determining factor in leading us to salvation or destruction, as the above passage indicates, is not how much truth we know, but whether or not we love the truth. The truth is more than an academic pursuit, or an intellectual exercise; the truth is a person. As Jesus boldly proclaimed and publicly demonstrated by His sinless life, selfless sacrifice, and miraculous resurrection from the dead, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life..." (John 14:6). When we choose to push away and suppress the truth we know, to willfully choose blindness to the light we have seen, then we will receive a spirit of delusion and will believe what is false.
Notice the motivation given for people choosing to love the truth or love their delusion. It is not, as so- called atheists claim, a matter of evidence, reason, or logic. All of that is just a thin, and frankly transparent attempt to camouflage what is really driving the choice to reject God. The actual reason is that they take pleasure in wickedness. And of course if you acknowledge the Lord, you will have to relinquish all wickedness in order to receive and walk with Him.
What Will You Do With Jesus?
" For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away {from it.} For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will" (Hebrews 2: 1-4).
Ultimately, knowing the truth behind what motivates people to reject their knowledge of God is helpful to us in being effective witnesses as we are commissioned to be. When we speak to those making a false claim to atheism, we may well find it helpful to show them that the evidence overwhelmingly shows that their assertion is patently and demonstrably delusional. This works like disarming an opponent. It forces them to admit to themselves that they have another motive driving their choices.
The question we now must put to them addresses the heart of the matter; knowing the truth that God exists and that He gave His only Son to save you from your sin, what will you do with Jesus? Here in the full light of truth, with no fake intellectual veil to hide your heart, will you choose to love the One who loves you and has proven it through extravagant and overwhelming sacrifice, or will you spurn His love, reject the truth, and choose to love and practice a lie?
The good news is that some, though the Bible plainly says few, will repent as you present the the gospel and be saved. The more sobering news is that many will, as they always have, reject the Lord and stubbornly cling to their wicked delusions.
Ultimately, as much as we love the lost and desire to see them in glory for all eternity, that is not why we witness. Above all, whether people choose to be saved or lost, we witness in order to be faithful to Jesus who so lovingly and selflessly saved us from our well earned condemnation. We do it because He is worthy to receive the reward for all that He suffered. And we do it because that is what He is doing, that is where His spirit is leading, that is our holy calling, and we follow Him and share in His work.
