How did you first encounter the idea of salvation? Who was involved? How have you defined salvation? What metaphors have worked well for you?
Well, it didn’t work for a variety of reasons. And after four years of trying, I really began to wonder what I was up to. I felt like a “Jesus salesman”, trying to get people to sign on the dotted line to gain their salvation. Was that really the point of the church? To simply get people to say yes so that their soul would go to heaven? If so, I couldn’t stomach it anymore.
At that time, I had to pick a focus for my doctoral studies. I decided this had to be my focus. I went deep into the meanings of the words salvation and eternal life and other, related phrases. What I discovered refreshed my soul and simultaneously created frustration in me. What did I discover? Salvation is way bigger than selling Jesus’ afterlife insurance policy. The word mean to save, to heal, to rescue, to restore. In essence, the salvation offered by God that Jesus came to proclaim was incredibly deep, beautiful, and compelling. Jesus was saying that if people followed his Way of thinking, being, and doing, they would find their deepest wounds healed, that they would get back (or forward) to their True Self which God envisioned in them all along. It is an abundant life of meaning and purpose that impacts those we love, those we don’t and those who seem a world away. As I studied salvation, I found myself saved/rescued/healed/restored, and my ministry right along with it. Note: Thanks, CrossWalk, for being on the journey with me – it hasn’t always been easy and is often messy.
But I did mention that I got angry.
What angered me was that this news was not broadcast from the mountaintops. In fact, I had grown frustrated in ministry because the Good News had been minimized to a decision for heaven or hell. It made God ugly and unfair, like a mob boss that would love you until he didn’t. Then you’re toast. There are a number of historical factors that created our situation today. To spend time understanding how we got here is important and helpful, but let’s rather spend time investigating what salvation meant (and still means) in a handful of biblical passages.
And let’s not make this a purely academic exercise. What salvation to you need? What do you need to be saved/rescued/healed/restored from?
We all need to be saved/rescued/healed/restored from death and fear of what’s after this flesh-and-blood portion of life. We are in luck! Jesus addressed this a number of times. Perhaps the most profound example can be found in the eleventh chapter of John’s Gospel. In this story, all hope was lost when Jesus finally entered the scene. Lazarus had been dead for four days, and Jesus called him back to life. The unmistakable take-home? Jesus had authority over death itself. Jesus himself died, but was seen many times in a different, resurrected form. Life goes on. Lazarus died again eventually – but I imagine he approached it with great confidence the second time around. In John’s chapter 14, Jesus assured his disciples that the life to come is real and good. Embracing Christ’s word on this gives us great hope as our life countdown continues. Reaffirm your confidence with something like this simple prayer: God, I trust what Jesus said about you and what that means for my life after death. I trust you to welcome me home when my life on this earth is over.
We all need to to be saved/rescued/healed/restored from well-earned shame. If we think we’re perfect and have never screwed up in our lives, we would be wrong. While we may be in denial, there are many witnesses throughout our respective personal histories that have wounds to prove the reality of our brokenness-induced missteps. When we really get honest about this with ourselves, we are often humbled by the damage in the wake of our lives. We wonder why God would want anything to do with us. Sometimes this leads to a fatalistic, it’s-too-late, there-is-no-hope, I-can’t-be-anything-more perspective on life. We sometimes feel so hopeless and helpless that we perpetuate the behavior that hurts us. When we are in this space (and we are at different times in our lives), we need to remember the story we see in John’s Gospel (chapter 8). The woman thrown before Jesus may have been a pawn, but was, in fact, guilty as charged. She felt all the shame and isolation from community and God as she was forced to come to grips with her life. Jesus’ response? I do not condemn you. Go and sin no more. In other words, do not live as if you are already condemned. You are not the Titanic, and your decisions are more than rearranging the deck chairs. You are valued by God, and can move forward in new directions with God’s presence and help. Find healing from your wounds with something like this simple prayer: God, I trust your heart of grace and I receive your love to cleanse me and heal me. Help me live in the Way that leads to the sin-less life.
We all need to be saved/rescued/healed/restored from prejudice. Sometimes we get labeled in ways that deeply wound us. We find ourselves having to live out a script that we didn’t choose, that we don’t want, but the rest of the characters in our lives struggle to let us break out of the role we’ve been put in. These limiting pressures stifle our sense of hope, and severely restrict our sense of identity. Jesus dealt with this as seen in chapter four of John’s Gospel. The woman at the well that he met in Samaria was placed in a deadly script that isolated her. Jesus freed her from that role as he let her know who he was and that she was valued by God. Embracing this truth over the limiting script of her peers, she found new life, and was even a herald of the news to the community that rejected her! If you are stuck in a limiting role that you no longer want, embracing and following Christ leads to freedom to become the real, true you God made you capable of. Find healing and restoration with something like this prayer: God, you know who I really am and who I can really become. I embrace Your love for me and the dream you have for my life. Help me trust You over the voices that serve to constrict me. Help me learn the Way that leads to life abundant.
We all need to be saved/rescued/healed/restored from a small life. This one is sometimes tough to see due to the comforts we enjoy here in the United States. At some point, perhaps when we’re finally quiet long enough to listen, we are haunted with the question of meaning. Is our life simply about making money, buying more stuff, taking more trips, climbing the social ladder? Should I feel content with more power and authority? Is becoming more and more religious really what it’s all about? Highly successful people in Jesus’ time wrestled with the same questions. Military commanders. Rich people. Religious leaders. All of them comfortable. All of them dissatisfied with the lackluster results their pursuits provided. Jesus addresses this issue as he conversed with Nicodemus (John 3). Nicodemus was highly educated and enjoyed great power as an elite religious leader living in Jerusalem. When he talked with Jesus, though, his worldview unraveled. He thought he might be going to tell Jesus a thing or two, and maybe dismantle some of Jesus’ errant thinking. Instead, Jesus talked about an invitation to a renewed life by the very Spirit of God. He spoke of a quality of existence here and now, referring to it as eternal life. The way to experience that exceptional life was to devote one’s thinking, being, and doing to the Way God was proclaiming in the life and work of Jesus. This is the essence of believing. When we don’t believe in Jesus – when we don’t orient our thinking, being, and doing around the Way God has shown us – we experience the lack of life that Way affords. We condemn ourselves, really, by our indecision or indifference or denial or rejection. We suffer a small life with limited meaning and impact. Want a bigger, more meaningful life? Find restoration in something like the following prayer: God, I don’t want to live a meaning-less life in pursuit of stuff that doesn’t matter. I choose to trade up to Your Way over my much smaller ways. Help me learn how to move my thinking, being, and doing in Your direction.
Salvation extends to every aspect of life. Personal identity. Marriage. Parenting. Aging. Environmental concerns. Global politics. World peace. Everything you can think of, really. But these four areas, in my opinion, are really core for us, and provide a great foundation from which we can build our lives.
The question is, now that you know what salvation is really all about – probably bigger than you may have imagined or entertained – what are you going to do going forward?
Within twenty years after the first Easter Sunday, the Apostle Paul challenged Jesus followers from the church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 3:10-15, NLT):
Because of God’s grace to me, I have laid the foundation like an expert builder. Now others are building on it. But whoever is building on this foundation must be very careful. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ.
Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.May you build wisely and well.
Bonus: To discover some ideas about how you might find yourself living in eternal life, check out these verses: 2 Corinthians 6:1-3; Ephesians 5:15, 16; 1 Peter 4:7-11; 1 John 2:15-17; Ephesians 4:26-5:2
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