NOBODY ASKED ME

A pastor friend and I are engaged in a texting discussion over the nature of salvation. 

In our last exchange he asked:

If someone came to you and asked, "What must I do to be saved from hell, receive eternal life, and be declared righteous before God?" what would you tell them?

I have tried to give this some serious consideration.

But the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous the entire premise became.

I have never been asked this question in the past four decades in which I have taken my faith seriously, and I doubt I will ever hear it the rest of my life.

In fact, I doubt this question has EVER been legitimately asked - unprompted - in the past 2,000 years.

Just look at it:

"What must I do to be saved from hell, receive eternal life, and be declared righteous before God?"

Only people who are ALREADY Christians talk this way. 

No unbeliever asks this question.

Which prompts a question from me - and surely, I am not the first to ask it: 

Why are we promoting a gospel that answers a question nobody is asking? 

SALVATION BEGINS NOW

If a person’s motivation for “believing in” Jesus is avoiding the punishment of hell or gaining the reward of heaven, it’s no wonder that, either way, he or she might need reassurance repeatedly after the big "decision". How many times will they need to be told, "Don't worry, your place in paradise is secure"? 

A certain level of uncertainty is entirely understandable for those who conceive of salvation as belonging entirely to the future. After all, you have the rest of your life to sit and wonder and worry. 

But, biblically speaking, salvation starts now. And that's good news because condemnation had started long, long ago - the moment Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

We have all been born outside the Garden of Eden, outside of the direct presence of God. We are sad creatures: made for a particular purpose - to be the image of our Creator - but unable to achieve that purpose because we're bent inward. 

In this state, we are easily manipulated and deceived by the spiritual powers of this world, held in slavery to sin, and subject to death. 

The good news is that our Creator sent his only Son in human flesh to redeem humanity and the entire creation. To rescue us. To put us back on course. 

Ever since Jesus first started preaching the coming (re)establishment of God's Kingdom on earth, people have been challenged to leave behind their sad, but familiar, routine in the dominion of darkness in order to follow the new King into the light. 

And even though each new wannabe citizen of the Kingdom comes with a criminal record, the King has made it possible to wipe every slate clean. If you want in, there's no baggage holding you back. Inside the Kingdom is Life, the way it was meant to be.

One day, when the King descends to earth with all of Heaven, it will be absolutely perfect - no sadness, no sin, no more death. Until then, the citizens carry on the process of redeeming all of earth, in the King's name and through the power of his Spirit. It is exciting, challenging, and dangerous work. The world pushes back.

In Luke 19, Jesus tells Zaccheus, “Today (Now!) salvation has come to this house ... for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the (Previously!) lost.”

This proclamation was prompted when Zaccheus called Jesus "Lord" and then declared his intention to give half his wealth to the poor and to make restitution to anyone he had wronged. 

Nobody in that house - nor Zaccheus nor Jesus Himself - had any reason to doubt Zaccheus's salvation. 

He had already begun living it. 

THE STARTING PLACE

At this point in my life, if someone were to ask me "How can I be saved?", the first thing I would ask is “What do you mean by ‘saved’? Saved from what?”

If the hypothetical person answered, “Saved from hell” or “I want to know how to get to heaven”, then I would know there's a lot of weeding to do before there’s any planting. 

By and large, non-believers have picked up a lot of the same misconceptions held by Christians regarding what faith is all about.

But if that person expressed a desire to be saved from “self” or “sin” or “fear” or “meaninglessness” or "death", or if he or she expressed an interest in knowing their Creator or how to fulfil their purpose for being?

Those are much more important questions.

And a very different starting place.

REFRAMING THE STANDARD AMERICAN GOSPEL

I grew up hearing the standard American Evangelical gospel message, the one focused on individual salvation: we are justified through faith by Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection so that upon death, we can be admitted into heaven. And all that is only by God’s grace, to be sure. 

That was “the gospel”.

Along the way I was taught “The Romans Road”, I was shown diagrams of the cross bridging a gap between earth and heaven that I could never jump across, and I heard youth pastors and preachers “evangelize” by asking, “If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?”

I was told that before people could understand the “good news”, they would need to be made aware of the “bad news”: you are a sinner and you fall short of God’s perfect standard and there’s no way for you to earn your way into heaven. And all sinners go to hell when they die.

But, again, we would circle back around then to the good news: Jesus died for you. And if you believe, his perfect righteousness covers you so that when God looks at you, he doesn’t see your sin – he sees his Son's righteousness.

On the one hand, it made sense to me. And there were certainly Scripture verses to back up this approach to the good news. 

And it certainly had repetition on its side.

But I had questions. And they grew over time, especially as I read more of the Bible for myself. 

The turning point question for me was this one: If the gospel is roughly “Jesus died for you so that you can go to heaven”, then why does Matthew describe the beginning of Jesus’ ministry by saying he “went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM and healing every disease and every affliction among the people”? (The first appearance of the word “gospel” in the New Testament, Matt 4:23.) 

What is “the gospel of the Kingdom”? If that’s just a code word for heaven, then why does Jesus consistently speak about the Kingdom as if it entails godly behavior in the here and now? Why the constant emphasis on the Kingdom of God and its righteousness? Why do so many of his parables begin with “The Kingdom of God is like…”? 

Furthermore, Jesus spends three years preaching and hardly mentions his own upcoming death. And when he does, it is heavily coded. If his own death, burial and resurrection is THE main message his followers are supposed to receive and believe, why didn’t he preach THAT clearly and repeatedly? 

Even in John 3, where everyone goes to find Jesus’ clearest teaching about the gospel, there is one veiled reference to Jesus's death - to him being “lifted up” like Moses lifted the serpent in the desert. 

But most of the focus in John 3 is on Jesus being the “Christ” and the “Son of Man” and the working of the Spirit and how Jesus is the only one who has “descended from heaven”. And as far as “belief” goes, Jesus speaks of believing “in the NAME of the ONLY SON OF GOD”. 

And Jesus says that if we are going to see the Kingdom, we have to undergo a radical change - a new birth. 

He explains that the world is already condemned to perish, but he brings with him the possibility of “eternal life” for anyone who believes “in him”. Furthermore, Jesus describes himself as “the light” coming into a world where most people prefer hiding in the darkness. BUT “whoever DOES what is true, comes into the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:21)

And so the typical modern gospel finds a few loose proof texts there in John 3, but only at the expense of leaving out a whole lot of other material. 

Once it really sank into me that THE big question surrounding Jesus was whether or not he was the promised Messiah, the Christ, I realized that I had never really attempted to read the New Testament through 1st century eyes.

What did the crowds understand the controversy surrounding Jesus to be? What were the stakes?

Every time Jesus comments on any individual’s pistis/faith during his earthly ministry, it always has to do with whether or not the person believes Jesus is who he says he is: the Christ – God’s anointed King. 

And now it makes much more sense to me that the gospel is less about getting into heaven than it is about God’s anointed King having arrived to re-establish God’s reign on earth and to populate that Kingdom with people whom he has rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the Kingdom of Light. 

This Kingdom is bringing about the renewal of God’s creation, setting everything right that has gone wrong, defeating sin, death, and Satan. 

This Kingdom starts now and finds its fulfillment when the Christ returns, bringing a fully renewed heaven down to a fully renewed earth. Likewise, eternal life starts now (the abundant life of John 10:10) and finds its fulfillment inside the gates of that New Jerusalem after our own bodily resurrection. 

“Salvation” isn’t about stepping into heaven when we die. It is about being enabled – through the cleansing of Christ’s blood, and the power of the Holy Spirit – to become what we were created to be in the first place: the image of God. 

Again, this starts in the present, where God calls us his children and offers lots of ongoing grace as we seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness – and eventually, One Day, we will “be like Jesus because we will see him as he is”. 

In the end, I simply cannot conceive of what it would mean to truly “believe” that Jesus is the King of kings without bowing my knee to him. 

And not out of some forced sense of obligation, but because bending my knee to my Creator is the very thing I was created to do and to be. 

And it is the only thing that will ultimately make my joy complete, here and now AND in the future. 

WRONG QUESTION

Take a look at this paragraph from Free Grace advocate, Bob Wilkin, as he critiques other Christians who (according to him) don't have the same level of "assurance of salvation" as he has:

Most people witness like this: “I don’t know where I’m going when I die. If you have 5 minutes I can help you not know where you are going when you die.” With a message like that, is it any wonder that most people find it hard to witness? That isn’t good news, is it?*

Does any aspect of Wilkin's words strike you as off? (Besides the snarkiness.)

Did you notice that his quibble with the way most Christians approach "witnessing" is that they lack assurance themselves and so they pass along the same lack of confidence to their "converts"? 

BUT ...

It simply never occurs to him to question the validity or appropriateness of the central question: "Do you know where you are going when you die?"

In fact, he reinforces it.

If you know your Bible, you should be shocked that, within the modern church, "You can go to heaven when you die" is considered an adequate summary of the "good news". 

But it most certainly is considered to be just that.

This cannot be overstated: The idea that the gospel entails the rescue of individuals from earth to enjoy a future disembodied bliss in heaven far away misses out on so much of the meat of the Christian faith - and its true goal - that it doesn't just fall short as a summary of the true gospel, it absolutely distorts it.

Obscures it.

Hinders it. 

Stops it in its tracks.

Something big needs to change.

* What Is Free Grace Theology? - Grace Evangelical Society

TRUE FORGIVENESS

Psalm 103

12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
13 As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
14 For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.

This is one of the most comforting texts in all of Scripture.

First, the promise that the forgiveness God offers us is utterly complete. There's no lingering resentment on His part.

Second, His forgiveness has a real effect on us. Our sins are not just papered over, but actually removed.

Third, there is the reminder of the Fatherly love of God. Imagine the God of the Universe showing you compassion - in light of your wrongdoing - as a Father interacting with a beloved child!

Fourth, His approach to us in our sins is tempered by His understanding of our frailty, the limitations imposed on us by our own lack of understanding, our selfishness, and our flesh bound existence. 

This doesn't mean we are let off the hook, but that in dealing with us, He remembers and takes into account what we're made of.

The entire psalm makes a great source for a Lenten meditation.  

GEORGE AND JESUS

I'm still working my way through the belief system of "Free Grace" theology. 

It conceives of faith as purely mental assent to propositional truths about Jesus: He is the Christ, the Son of God, whose death and resurrection made justification of sinful humans possible. 

Just belief. No repentance or actions needed. 

Don't believe me?

According to the Grace Evangelical Society - which is "the horse's mouth" when it comes to Free Grace theology:

"Faith in Christ is intellectual assent. Stripped of its pejorative connotation, “intellectual assent” is a good definition of what faith is.

"For example, do you believe that George Washington was the first President of the United States? If you do, then you know what faith is from a Biblical perspective.

"There is no commitment, no decision of the will, no turning from sins, and no works that are part of faith in Christ. If you are convinced or persuaded that what He promised is true, then you believe in Him. Faith is passive. It is simply taking Jesus at His word."

That's the Free Grace position on faith.

And if you "believe" in Jesus in this most basic way, your spot in heaven is secure.

Just ... wow.

I'm not sure how you square "intellectual assent" with the Bible's depiction of faith coming in different sizes:

• Faith can be LITTLE - Matt 8:26 “You of little faith,” Jesus replied, “why are you so afraid?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it was perfectly calm.
• In fact, you can be WEAK in faith - Rom 14:1 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.
• But it can be INCREASED - Luke 17:5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
• You can make PROGRESS in faith - Phil 1:25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith
• Because faith can GROW - 2 Thess 1:3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly
• And in time become GREAT - Matt 15:28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly. 
• A person can even be FULL of faith - Acts 6:5 And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit

Meanwhile, my belief that George Washington was our first president has remained rather static throughout my lifetime.