Lux Lucet

So what is an evangelical anyway? It’s common term, and not just in church circles either. Now that the US presidential elections are well underway, one often hears the word evangelical in connection with politics, as in such and such a candidate is attempting to garner the evangelical vote. But who are these people whose votes the politicians want?

From stories that appear in the media, one gets the distinct sense that evangelical has come to anyone who’s a non-Roman Catholic, non- mainline liberal Protestant church goer. The popular image of which could be described as a mega-church attending, TBN watching, pre-trib rapture awaiting Christian Zionist.

In his 2007 study concerning who qualifies as an Evangelical, George Barna found that 38% of the US population described themselves as such.

As part of the same survey, Barna used a nine-point definition of Evangelical to identify individuals who belonged to this group. Judged by Barna’s criteria, only about 8% of the US population can be described as Evangelical.

Historically speaking, the definition of Evangelical has encompassed two criteria: justification by faith alone (JBFA) and the authority of Scripture alone. Gordon Clark makes this point in Chapter 4 of God’s Hammer, writing, “The term evangelical, an inheritance from the Reformation, reminds us of the so-called material principle of the origin of Protestantism. Justification by faith alone was the material principle…”

Clark continues, “[T]he so-called formal principle of the Reformation [is] the Scripture itself. No one can rightly appropriate the term evangelical who rejects the one or the other.”

Belief in the twin towers of the Reformation, Scripture alone and Justification by Faith alone, is required of anyone who wishes to be considered an evangelical, at least in the historical sense of the term.

A few further definitions

“But,” one may be tempted to ask, “what is meant by Scripture alone and JBFA? Well, I’m glad you asked. For these are questions worth exploring.

Regarding Scripture alone, it is important to define what is meant by Scripture. This is a critical step, because not everyone means the same thing by the term Bible. The Roman Catholic Church-State identifies the Bible as a collection of 73 books and various fragments. But when Evangelicals speak of the Bible, they mean the collection of 66 books identified by the Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter I.2 as the infallible, inerrant and inspired Word of God. These books and these alone are of authority in the church.

The term justification likewise requires explanation. It is a legal, a forensic term. It is a declaration by God that a sinful man is not-guilty before the bar of his justice. Sinner’s are justified once for all at the time they put their faith in Christ. Justification in not to be confused with sanctification. Unlike justification, sanctification is a process that occurs over the Christian’s lifetime. Believers are first declared righteous by justification, and then made more Christ like over time as they come to better understand, and assent to, the Bible’s teachings. Sanctification is not good works. But good works follow from sanctification. They are the “fruit of the Spirit” as Paul put it.

Faith is another word worth discussing. The traditional definition of faith breaks it into three parts: understanding, assent and trust. This is how most theologians define faith, and how I first learned to define it. But defining faith in this way has a problem, and that problem centers on the word trust.

The object of faith (or still better, belief) is always a proposition. A proposition is simply the meaning of a declarative sentence. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” is an example of a declarative sentence. It declares what a subject (God) did (he created the heavens and earth) and the time when he did it (in the beginning). A declarative sentence is distinct from a question – Did God create the heaven and the earth in the beginning? – or a command – Create the heavens and the earth! One cannot put faith in, that is believe, a question or a command.

The meaning of a declarative sentence is subtly different from the sentence itself. For example the meaning of the first sentence of the Bible can be expressed using passive rather than active voice, “In the beginning the heavens and the earth were created by God,” is a slightly different sentence with the same meaning as, “In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The same meaning can be expressed in a different language. For example the original Hebrew or the Greek of the Septuagint use different words, but express the same meaning as, the English version of Genesis 1:1.

Using the traditional formulation, one has faith in Genesis 1:1 when he 1) understands what the passage is teaching, 2) when he agrees that it is true, and 3) when he trusts it. But the problem lies in the fact that to require both agreement (assent) and trust is to make a distinction where none exists. When I agree that what the Bible teaches is true, I trust what it has to say. If I trust the words of Christ, I agree that what he says is true.

A better way of defining faith is to get rid of the notion of trust altogether and define faith as understanding with assent, or assent to an understood proposition. A sinner is saved when he understands the Gospel and accepts it as true, the Gospel being the good news of what Christ alone has done to save his people: his sinless life, his death on the cross and his resurrection.

Conclusion

Evangelical is a historic Reformation term used to describe someone who holds to the doctrine of Scripture alone and justification by faith (belief) alone. Using these criteria, one would have to conclude that there are far fewer evangelicals in the US than the popular imagination would suppose.

Further clarification of the meaning of evangelical comes from a proper understanding of the terms justification (God’s declaring a sinner just, or not guilty) on the basis of his faith or belief (defined as understanding with assent) in the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone.