There is an objection to TAG out there that goes something like this:
TAG cannot save anyone.
Depending on your context, sometimes it goes like this instead:
Apologetics cannot save anyone.
Of course, this is not much of an objection. It is more so just a slightly annoying comment. Perhaps that is an indication that I need to be frequently reminded of it. Apologetics do not save; the Gospel saves. I do not save; Jesus Christ saves. But then, how many times does it take before I have the categories here straight? Could it be that the person raising this “objection” is in need of the correction of categories?
I, for one, am very glad that believers throughout the centuries have engaged in all of the practices they have which had almost no direct relation to people being saved. Textual criticism and translation take a lifetime to master, and they do not necessarily make one feel very Christian while they are being done, but boy am I glad that people have done them! There are countless other examples.
The next time an unbeliever forthrightly rejects the Gospel through some objection, I would encourage you to respond with an apologetic. Use one that follows what is given to us by prescription and example in Scripture. A sound apologetic is never less than a call to repentance. It might be that God, in his mercy, will grant that repentance through the means He has commanded believers to use.
In the meantime, do not feel guilty about putting the work into apologetics that it takes to deepen your own faith and to deal with the objections others raise to that faith in a hostile world that needs the Lord Jesus Christ. His is the only name under heaven by which men are saved.
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