Question
Would you further explain what you mean by the “trigger to the gospel”, as mentioned in Enjoy The Bible Quarterly, Quarter #2, 2003, on the topic of our ‘ambassadorship’?
Response
The essential truth for ‘pulling the trigger to the gospel’ is something that has already been set in people’s minds by God, and that it is the truth that they are ‘holding in unrighteousness’, as stated in Romans 1:18. And so it is. Hence, what we need to do as “ambassadors for Christ” when it comes to ‘broaching the subject of a person’s need for salvation’ is to appeal to that “truth” that is in them, and that they are naturally holding, and in so doing we ‘pull the trigger to the gospel’ and the subject is effectually broached for us.
Now that “truth” of Romans 1:18 is the issue of what verses 19ff go on to describe and deal with. It is the issue of ‘the light of God consciousness’, which not only involves the truth of God’s existence and His power, in that He is the Creator of all; but it also involves the truth that in view of God’s existence, eternal power, and Godhead, a person is accountable to Him as his God and that he eventually will have his life judged by Him as such. And it is especially this issue of accountability to God’s “Godhead”, and the resulting judgment that men will face from it, that comprises what I call “the trigger to the gospel”. For this is particularly the point within the fundamental truth that is “manifest in them” that men ‘hold in unrighteousness’. They either dishonestly suppress it by various mental ploys, not wanting to honestly consider it, or they seek to soothe their conscience of it by dishonestly and/or erroneously reasoning within themselves about it and so coming up with any number of ‘conscience numbing rationalizations’. Yet either way they are still ‘holding the truth in unrighteousness’.
So it is that when we as “ambassadors for Christ” understand and appreciate the reality of this “truth” being resident within men, and know what they naturally do with it; and when we then appeal to it in accordance with the fact that God has designed for it to be an irritant within their conscience and bothersome to them; then we ‘pull the trigger to the gospel’, so to speak, with the issue of their need for salvation being effectually broached by us, along with the opportunity for us to function as “ambassadors for Christ” effectually now in place with them.
And the particular way by which we appeal to this truth within a person’s conscience, and effectually make it irritating to him regardless of whatever means he is employing to ‘hold it in unrighteousness’, is by pointedly confronting him with it. That is, by pointedly bringing up with him the fact that eventually he is going to die and will face the judgment of God. (And probably the most pointed way of doing this is by simply asking him, “What is going to happen to you when you die?”) And with this we ‘pull the trigger to the gospel,’ and regardless of what his response to the question is, the subject is now broached and the opportunity for us to function as an ambassador for Christ to him is underway. His response to the question will tell us exactly how it is that he is ‘holding the truth in unrighteousness’, and therefore exactly how it is that we need to proceed as an ambassador for Christ. But when it comes to the issue of simply ‘pulling the trigger to the gospel’, it is pulled when we effectually appeal to the irritating truth that he holds in his conscience about knowing that he is eventually going to die and face the judgment of God. And once the trigger is pulled, we as ambassadors will either be a ‘savour of death unto death, or of life unto life’.
Keith Blades
Enjoy The Bible Ministries
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