I’m often asked, ‘If it is indeed the case that Christ saves all of mankind, then what need is there in evangelizing?’ There are multiple issues with this question, only one of which I will address here. The question stated implies that as an ambassador of Christ my primary goal is to warn people of hell and inform them of their escape route in Christ. Christians, brothers and sisters, it would seem you have lost, or else long forgotten your sense of romance. In the New Testament, Christ isn’t painted as threatening people into heaven; He is portrayed as a groom wooing His bride.
The romancing of mankind did not begin with Christ in the New Testament. The Godhead has been wooing creation since the dawn of time. The stars are His handiwork and have fascinated both poets and astronomers. The sun He hung in place to light up His canvas. And the moon, to reflect its glory even in the darkness. He gave us the mountains for us to wonder at from below and the valleys for us to marvel at from above. He gave us companionship; He gave us the curves of a woman’s figure; He gave us the wind to cool us–the rain to quench our thirst, the flower to inspire us, and the ocean to awe us. It’s all a revelation of His beauty and it’s all to woo His beloved. Christianity is a romance between a Groom and His bride. And like every good romance, Love succeeds in the end: all that comes between the Lover and the beloved is defeated–only perfect union remains.
The suffering of this current age, the famine, the sickness, the sin, the death, are but the birth pangs of new life. Even the curse laid out in Genesis 3:16 serves to produce the crescendo of Christ’s victory over all that is between bride and Groom. No minor chord will end the song of creation; no dissonant tone will escape the harmony; no threat of death, no law penned, and no debt incurred will surpass the chariot of Grace. No enemy will surmount the inexorable love of God.
Within this Godhead exist three persons that have eternally and truly known the abyss of this inexhaustible love; nay, the Godhead is the abyss itself, in all its unfathomable and unmeasurable depths. The ever-reaching heights of fatherhood are beheld in the Father’s love for the Son. The exceeding beauty of Sonship is displayed in Christ’s submission to the Father’s will. And it is the omnipotent power of the Spirit at work that leads the heart of the bride down the aisle to the Groom.
It is this Godhead–this abyss of eternal love, this depth of the I Am–that has suffered the failings of the bride. It is the Father that has lost His coin; it is the Son that seeks to find it; and it is the Spirit at work in the heart of man that seeks to be found. Death may delay, but nothingness can never truly overcome the Everything.
No minor chord will end the song of creation; no dissonant tone will escape the harmony; no threat of death, no law penned, and no debt incurred will surpass the chariot of Grace. No enemy will surmount the inexorable love of God.
It is at the cross that time and eternity meet–in the marriage of the Infinite and the finite. It is in this marriage, this rebirth of all created order, this union between all creation in Christ, and the All in All, that is love laid bare at last. This is the romance: the working out of it, the groaning of creation towards it, the suffering in pursuit of it, the law that started it, the Christ that founded it, the Father that sought it, and the Spirit that guided it.
When nothingness is no more, when the universe is at last full in the eyes of God, and the bride led to a better country, The I Am will be All in All. Christianity is first and foremost a romance. We aren’t ambassadors of fear; we are ambassadors of Love. We are to introduce the lost to the courtship of Christ. Let Christ melt their heart of stone; let Christ take the chisel of grace and chip away at their pride.
It has been said, ‘Death cannot defeat love, only delay it,’ and ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ Indeed, when the heart tastes love, when the mind awakens to its presence, when reason comes to grasp its depth, height, and breadth, it’s absence was all the sweeter–and it’s presence all the fuller. The delay of glory is but the processional order waltzing down the aisle in the cathedral of time, culminating in an eternal marriage to the Groom and the birth of new life. The Groom must remove the veil, the bride must see the Groom, and the two must become One.