The Pioneer Journey
When the nineteenth-century pioneers set out on the overland journey to California, they encountered two major mountain ranges. The first was the Rocky Mountains, and the second was the Sierra Nevada—unavoidable, challenging, and often dangerous. Only after crossing both did the Pacific coastline come into view.
The spiritual journey from believing in God as a vague higher power, a cosmic genie, or a kindly old man, to believing in the God revealed in Scripture follows a similar path. Like those pioneers, every traveler must cross two mountain ranges. The first is to know the God of Israel. The second is to recognize that Israel’s God has perfectly revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, His eternal Son.
Many never make the journey. The peaks appear too high, the climb too costly, so they settle somewhere east of the mountains with a god fashioned by imagination rather than revelation.
The First Mountain Range: The God of Israel
The first mountain range is the God revealed through Israel.
After making Himself known through creation, God chose Abraham and his descendants to become the people through whom He would reveal His character to the nations. Through the exodus, the covenant, the Law, the prophets, and Israel’s long and often troubled history, God progressively disclosed who He is.
Israel itself frequently misunderstood Him, drifting toward the idols of surrounding nations. Yet throughout the biblical narrative, God’s holiness, justice, mercy, faithfulness, sovereignty, and covenant love become increasingly clear. Israel was entrusted with preserving this revelation so that the nations might know Yahweh.
By the first century, many Gentiles had come to worship Israel’s God without fully converting to Judaism. Scripture calls them God-fearers. They had already crossed the first mountain range. They knew the Creator, the covenant God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their remaining journey was to discover that this very God had revealed Himself perfectly in Jesus.
The Second Mountain Range: Jesus, the Son of God
When Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, He was not introducing a new God or correcting an outdated picture of the Father. He was revealing perfectly the God Israel had been coming to know throughout its history.
As Hebrews declares, “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets… but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2).
The Son is not a different revelation but the climax of God’s self-revelation.
Throughout His ministry Jesus consistently directed people to the Father. To see Him was to see the Father. He and the Father were one. He spoke only what the Father had given Him. Jesus never invited people to redefine God according to their own preferences. He claimed to reveal the Father perfectly.
Without the foundation laid by the Old Testament, however, Jesus is easily misunderstood. He becomes merely a wise teacher, a compassionate healer, a social reformer, or an inspiring moral example. But within the story of Israel, Jesus is recognized as far more—the eternal Son who shares the very identity and nature of Yahweh.
For many, this second mountain range proves just as difficult to cross as the first.
Acts Demonstrates the Journey
The apostles recognized that people stood at different places along this journey.
Whenever possible, Paul began with the Jews and the God-fearers because they had already crossed the first mountain range. They understood the God of Abraham. Their remaining challenge was to recognize Jesus as Israel’s promised Messiah and eternal Son.
Peter followed the same pattern. At Pentecost, and later in the house of Cornelius, he did not begin by explaining the Creator. His audience already knew Him. Peter simply led them across the Sierra Nevada by proclaiming Jesus as the crucified, resurrected, and exalted Messiah.
Mars Hill required a different approach.
Standing before a thoroughly pagan audience in Athens, Paul first introduced the God they did not know. He described Him as Creator, Lord of heaven and earth, Sustainer of life, and Judge of all humanity. Only after establishing the identity of the true God did Paul point toward Jesus: the Man whom God had raised from the dead and appointed as Judge.
The responses varied. Some mocked. Some wanted to hear more. A few—including Dionysius and Damaris—continued the journey and became believers.
The apostles always began where their listeners stood. They did not begin at the coast.
Why This Matters Today
For much of the twentieth century, American evangelism assumed people had already crossed both mountain ranges. Most possessed at least a nominal belief in the God of the Bible and the deity of Christ. Evangelists could therefore begin with humanity’s need for forgiveness because the necessary foundation was assumed.
Those assumptions have largely disappeared.
The 2022 State of Theology survey conducted by Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research found that among self-identified evangelicals:
- 73 percent agreed that Jesus was the first and greatest being created by God.
- 43 percent agreed that Jesus was a great teacher but not God.
Even within churches that affirm biblical authority, confusion about the identity of Jesus is increasing. Many have not truly crossed the second mountain range.
The Coastline Comes Into View
Only after crossing both mountain ranges does the coastline finally appear.
Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus points toward this destination. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son…” (John 3:16). God’s love begins the journey. The gift of His Son carries us over the second range. But the coastline itself is the breathtaking panorama that unfolds once we understand who this Son truly is and what He has accomplished.
John’s Gospel gradually reveals that panorama. Jesus is the second Adam, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the crucified and risen Messiah, the ascended High Priest, the reigning King, and the coming Judge. The gospel is not merely the claim that Jesus is divine. It is the glorious story of what the divine Son came to accomplish through His incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and reign.
Many modern gospel presentations attempt to begin at the coastline. “You are a sinner.” “Jesus died for you.” “God has a wonderful plan for your life.” While each statement is true, they often make little sense to someone still standing somewhere in Kansas. Without knowing the God who sent His Son, the cross easily becomes the tragic death of a good man rather than the saving work of the eternal Son of God.
The apostles did not start at the coast. They started where their listeners stood and pointed them toward the mountain ranges still ahead.
The gospel does not begin with us and our need. It begins where the Bible begins, and where every traveler must begin:
“In the beginning, God…”
The first thread of God’s metanarrative gives us the who. The why comes next.
For Reflection
- How does the pioneer journey help explain why understanding God is a process rather than a single decision?
- Why do you think many modern gospel presentations begin “at the coast” rather than where people actually are?
- How do the statistics about belief in Jesus’ deity challenge our assumptions about evangelism today?
- Think about someone you know who has little biblical background. Where are they on the pioneer journey? Are they still in “Kansas” approaching the Rockies, crossing the Sierra Nevada, or beginning to see the coastline? How would you find out?
- After reading this article, how would you explain to someone why the gospel begins with God rather than with our need?