Evangelicals are never about propositions alone: we want the theological truths of the gospel to transform us by the renewing of our minds (Rom.12:2).
We want to know God, in a personal way. We don’t simply affirm that Scripture is our supreme authority and that we are justified by faith alone through Christ alone. We actually submit to Scripture as our supreme authority and enjoy Christ as our only Saviour, praising Him from our hearts for His all-sufficiency and grace.
The history of evangelicalism is marked by story after story of conversion. However, under all those conversions lies the real evangelical principle: the need for the Spirit’s regeneration.
Evangelicals are people who are ‘born of the Spirit’ (John 3:6,8). To be an evangelical, then, means much more than to be born into an evangelical culture or baptised in an evangelical church. Evangelicalism at its best has always seen the Spirit’s regeneration as the vital matter.
And true regeneration cannot be engineered by us: it is a divine work, brought about only through the gospel, which is ‘the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes’ (Rom.1:16). If people are naturally sinners who cannot save themselves but must be born again, then they need to hear the saving gospel. On the very day of His resurrection, Jesus showed that evangelism is something that happens in the power of the Spirit: ‘Jesus said to them again: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” ’ (John 20:21,22).
The new life the Spirit gives is the life of the Son. The Spirit is, after all, the Spirit of the Son (Gal. 4:6). He therefore gives the children of God the heartbeat of the Son, so that they share His compassion and His concern for the world. Empowered by the Spirit, they speak the gospel out of the abundance of hearts that have been filled with the love of God (Matt. 12:34; Rom.5:5).
The Spirit does not give us a new birth as an end in itself: it is a new birth into a new and eternal life. He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion (Phil.1:6), transforming us at every level into the image of Christ so that one day even our poor bodies will be like His glorious resurrection body. And we, in turn, who live by the Spirit seek to keep in step with the Spirit (Gal.5:25).
It all starts with our freedom from condemnation in Christ (Rom.8:1-7). What we could not do by ourselves to fulfil the law, Christ has done, both fulfilling the commands of the law and receiving the condemnation our sin deserves (v.3). But Christ did this, not that we might carry on as we were, but ‘in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us’ (v.4).
And how is that requirement fulfilled in us? First, as we walk according to the Spirit (v.4). We who have been set free from the condemnation of the law actually begin to walk in accordance with the law, because of the Spirit’s work in us. Our lives change. But more, something deeper happens, in our minds: ‘Those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit’ (v.5).
And this ‘something more’ that the Spirit does in us is worth unpacking. The first call of the law was: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might’ (Deut. 6:5). Jesus called this ‘the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’ (Matt.22:38-40). As Paul went on to explain, ‘love is the fulfilling of the law’ (Rom.13:10). Without love for God and love for neighbour, the law would not be fulfilled in us, but this is the change the Spirit effects in believers.
There is therefore no such thing as a Christian who is only justified. Those to whom the Spirit gives new birth will live according to the Spirit and find themselves loving, thinking, and acting differently. For that reason, evangelicalism has never been about doctrine alone. Consistent evangelicals must apply their theology and so care about orthodoxy (right doctrine) and orthopraxy (right practice) and orthocardia (right heart). We are to be a people who do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with our God (Mic. 6:8).
In other words, there is no true orthodoxy or orthopraxy without orthocardia. Evangelicals should therefore not be content with bare doctrine or bare religious behaviour, however seemingly correct. Born of the Spirit, we should spurn both spiritual hypocrisy and emptiness, loving both God and neighbour as we ‘glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh’ (Phil. 3:3).
