Army of Priests

I sent this email some time ago to a bible study group after the “Rewards for Works” theology had been discussed. These days my knowledge of this theology has increased and thus my arguments would be different but I still believe this original email contains valuable insights.

I don’t know how many of you guys remember us talking about rewards for works at young adults two weeks ago. The general idea is that we are given different rewards in heaven for what we have done and this might be a higher status or a better job or a bigger house or something like that. I’ve been doing a lot of research and study and this is what I have found.

As far as I can gather “Rewards for Works” theology is a relatively new idea that first appeared in the book “Eternal Security” by Charles Stanley. This book was first printed as recently as 1990 and you can still buy it here (though the reviews are not good). Charles Stanley proposed that there were different “layers of heaven”. In the following quote Charles Stanley refers to the parable in Mathew 25:14-30 about the three servants with the gold and two servants double what they are given whereas one just buries it for safety:

The final verse of this parable is so severe that many commentators assume it is a description of hell. It is not . . . The point of this parable is that in God’s future kingdom, those who were faithful in this life will be rewarded and those who were not will lose any potential reward . . . Before we can understand the full impact of this parable, we must first determine what the “outer darkness” refers to in the context of the parable. It certainly does not mean hell in the parable. How could a master throw a slave into hell? . . . But what actual place was Jesus referring to in the parable? He gave us only one hint: “In that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” . . . To be in the “outer darkness” is to be in the kingdom of God but outside the circle of men and women whose faithfulness on this earth earned them a special rank or position of authority… We cannot conceive of the agony and frustration we would feel if we were to undergo such an ordeal: the realization that our unfaithfulness had cost us eternally would be devastating. And so it will be for many believers. Just as those who are found faithful will rejoice, so those who suffer loss will weep.

Read more…

With the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther Kings death a number of news media printed reports and opinions on his work during the 60′s and 70′s. One such article, published by CNN on Monday, was a particularly interesting read as it contrasted the Prophetic Gospel of King with the Prosperity gospel of the modern church. Here is some of what the article had to say:

Forty years after his death, King remains a prophet without honor in the institution that nurtured him, some black preachers and scholars say.

They also say King’s “prophetic” model of ministry — one that confronted political and economic institutions of power — has been sidelined by the prosperity gospel.

“It’s dangerous to be prophetic,” said Wheeler, who is also president of the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana.

“I don’t know many prophetic preachers who are driving big cars and living very comfortably. You don’t generally build huge churches by making folks uncomfortable on Sunday morning,” he said.

The Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where King preached, says that prosperity preaching is not just a distortion of Jesus’ message but a betrayal of the black church’s heritage. The black church was formed by slaves who saw Jesus’ message as a tool for social justice.

You can read the full article here or (if it is deleted) download a PDF version here.

Read more…

Given some of my comments previously I thought it would be appropriate to clarify my position on penal substitution. Penal Substitution is one of many “models” of the atonement which has become more controversial over the last few years as many Christians (particularly those from the emerging conversation which I consider myself a part of) have begun to challenge its long standing (since the middle-ages) position as the core of Christian doctrine.

As a starting point I believe that the cross is multi-faceted in the way it deals with sin and heals our world. As such I do not believe it is a case of choosing one model at the expense of the others. I believe all (or most) “models” of the atonement should be taken into our understanding. However, I also believe penal substitutionary atonement has been over-emphasised at the expense of the other “facets” and needs to be put back in its appropriate place. I believe this emphasise is damaging in that penal substitutionary atonement has the potential to distort our view of wrath if not analysed properly.

An explanation of Penal Subsitutionary Atonement (aka Satisfaction Theory or Propiationary Atonement) goes as follows: The wages of sin are death. God, because He is just and cannot go against His own nature requires that all sin must be paid for (thus the existence of hell). Jesus death satisfies God’s justice thus allowing Him to forgive and enables us to escape the penalty that was waiting for us. In essence, Jesus death allows God to be both just and merciful at the same time.

My Problems with this View:

1. Penal Substitutionary Atonement changes God instead of Man

In this view it is God who has a problem that must be dealt with in order for us to escape hell. Jesus death changes God, enabling Him to pardon us from our sin. But this is counter-intuitive: surely the problem is with us and not God.

2. Penal Substitutionary Atonement separates the Father from the Son

In this model Jesus is a separate entity to the Father who, by dying, can satisfy the Father. The Son has come to earth to save us from the Father.

3. Penal Substitutionary Atonement separates Jesus death from His life and resurrection

According to this idea Jesus came merely to die as His death alone could satisfy His purposes. Different meanings must be given to His life and resurrection in order for them to have purpose. The incarnation is no longer viewed as a single ‘package’.

Biblical Basis

What is biblical about this view is that Jesus death was the result of Him bearing the consequences of our sin so that we don’t have to. This idea is threaded throughout the New Testament so I wont bother listing verses here. It should be noted that this idea doesn’t need to be carried on the back of this model.

What is unbiblical about this view is the idea that God’s wrath requires satisfaction. This view is based around the thought that our actions can earn favour from God and is inherently pagan in origin. In Pagan mythology people would sacrifice animals to the gods so that they would avert disaster or have good crops. This is what we call propiation.

But Hebrew sacrifices (and the bible in general) emphasise expiation. Expiation is the process by which we are cleansed of sin as opposed to changing God’s view of that sin. The change is in us instead of God.

Justice

However, the big issue here is our understanding of Justice. We in the western world have a very stage idea of justice. Our court systems are based around the idea of punishing someone so that their pain will satisfy the victim’s (and nation’s) vengeance. Courts are meant to insure that the perpetrators of a crime suffer as much as their victims have. “An eye for an eye” is the basis of the idea.

But as Gandhi said, continuing Jesus tradition started in Mathew 5:38-42, “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.” Our legal system suffers from the logical fallacy that two wrongs make a right. Perpetrating evil in an attempt to destroy evil only ever leads to ever growing spirals of violence. War cannot create peace. It is based on the flawed myth of redemptive violence.

We western Christians, coming from a modern world view, then read this warped understanding of justice back into the biblical text. This is a mistake. God’s justice, rather than being the execution of his vengeance, is focused on redemption and reconciliation. Earthly (or vigilante?) justice is executed when a young man who killed a family’s son is sent to jail for life for what he has done. God’s justice is executed when that grieving family takes that broken man under their wings as their new son. It happens when wounds are healed and relationships are restored to their Godly standing – based in mutual love and respect. Justice happens when relationships are “justified” – put into right alignment.

Consider the close relationship between mercy and justice in the following passages: Isaiah 1:17, 30:18, Jeremiah 21:12, Zechariah 7:9, and Matthew 12:18-21. And read Jesus own mission statement in Luke 4:18-19: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” You’ll notice that the entire statement is about reconciliation. To release prisoners rather than put them in jail. To fix things rather than make them worse.

However, I wouldn’t want to make the mistake of forgetting God’s wrath. It is not something I fully understand. But it is real. Sin is serious. I am convinced however that it is a part of justice – not all of justice. Perhaps Mathew 25:31-46 is a clue to understanding this.

This concept of justice runs right through the New Testament (and much of the Old). It is the reason the early Christians were strict pacifists requiring new Christians who were soldiers, along with prostitutes or judges to leave their profession (Tertullian wrote, “The divine banner and the human banner do not go together, nor the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil. Only without the sword can the Christian wage war: for the Lord has abolished the sword.” Origen wrote, “You cannot demand military service of Christians any more than you can of priests. We do not go forth as soldiers.” It should be noted however that around 160-70 AD some Christians were soldiers going against the general will of the apostles and church fathers but were not excluded from communion). Jesus death teaches us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for.

It is also why Christians had to be hospitable to even the lowest members of society. As Christ’s ambassadors they has to execute God justice and love which was reconciliation.

From this perspective we see that Christ’s death, rather than satisfying God’s sense of Justice, actually executes God’s justice by repairing the broken relationship between God and man.

For further resources on this topic I highly recommend this sermon on the atonement by Bishop Ware. My notes can be found here. Also Sharktacos at The Rebel God frequently discusses this issue.

PS: I will be trying to post something every Friday from now on (Australian Eastern Standard Time). Though with my previous record I could miss a few!

In my previous post I discussed how I felt contemporary Christianity’s popular gospel message had reduced the good news to just another consumer product. I also pondered how to evangelise a gospel which was much more demanding and, I believe, true to the original message. The next few posts are my fractured part-answers to my questions.

The Cross of Christ

I think Christians often underestimate the power of the cross. Many times I have heard people ask “Why did Jesus have to die?” If you believe He died only to provide for us a means of forgiveness from sins it is a valid question. God doesn’t need blood to forgive. He is absolutely in love with you. He begs to spend every moment with you. If He slept He would dream of you. He is your one true father. He wishes to lavish you with attention. He isn’t looking over you waiting for you to stuff up so that He can punish you. And He certainly doesn’t need payment to satisfy Himself (the oft-taught dogma that God’s wrath needs to be satisfied before His love can forgive does not appear in the Bible; God justice is not vengeance). The son did not come to save us from the Father.

But if Jesus died for our redemption we have a different story. You see, God didn’t need Jesus to die – we did. Whilst God would forgive us in a second without Jesus I doubt we would turn to Him. And sin has done much more damage than just to put a few black marks against our name. It has consistently and cruelly destroyed the image of God that was once in us. Over the centuries it has turned us from glorious beacons of God into awful monsters. It is this fate – being monsters – that hangs in the balance. I believe God came to redeem us from this reality and to turn us into fulfilled, living people who will glorify Him the way we were made to.

How does the cross do this?

The Cross reveals our Sin

The Pharisees accused Jesus of blaspheme against the temple for His statement that “not one stone will be left here upon another” (Matthew 24:2). Jesus was telling the truth. They taunted His majesty by giving Him a crown of thorns. Jesus is the king of the heavens. With whips they tore the skin of His flesh. Jesus comforted the poor. They spat on Him. Jesus feed the hungry. They shamed Him before crowds. Jesus healed the sick. They nailed His hands to the cross. Jesus never sinned.

Christ’s death represents the greatest injustice of human history. Jesus let himself – the only truly pure and righteous man – be killed upon a roman torture device. In so doing He proves once an for all that we are evil. The fact that my sins resulted in the death of the most beautiful thing in the world teaches me how far I have fallen. And His death exposes for once and for all the prince of this world for what he is – disgusting. As Colossians 2:15 says, “having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Christ, by His death exposed those powers and authorities, and their exposure is God’s victory.

This revelation leads to conviction which leads to humility and fear which leads to repentance. A deep, life changing form of repentance birthed in brokenness before God. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17) This form of brokenness is a far cry from the usual consumerist response we often try to use to get people to convert.

The Cross reveals our Beauty

The fact we killed Christ proved we are ugly, but the fact Christ let us proves we are beautiful. Jesus, the king of the 160 billion galaxies in the known universe, made Himself nothing – even going so far to submit himself to our scorn and death on the cross (Philippians 2:6-8)! And He did it entirely because of love (John 3:16). That shows just how valuable we are.

There are two types of value an object may have. Firstly, it may have instrumental value – we value it because of what it can do for us. Secondly, it may have intrinsic value – we value it because of what it is. If a fire burns in your house you would grab your birth certificate and drivers license because they have instrumental value. But you would grab the family photos because of their intrinsic value.

One of the great problems with sin is that it emphasizes people’s instrumental value at the expense of their intrinsic value. Lust, for instance, is the focus on a person’s ability to bring you pleasure whilst degrading their instrumental value as a person with their own needs and feelings. So often do we make this mistake. How many times have you become frustrated with the slowness of a checkout chick, as though she were just a machine, without ever considering that perhaps she is having a bad day herself.

By exposing our evil Christ’s death strips us of our instrumental value – we are worth nothing to Him for what we can do for Him. But it elevates our intrinsic value to new heights. The fact that even though we can never repay Him, but He still died for us shows that He did it just because He values us for what we are. That is true love. And where conviction brings us to our knees, His love brings us into His arms. Without Christ’s death we would never truly know how much we mean to Him.

The Cross reveals our Option

I remember in a sermon hearing the story of a solider, who after several battles in a hard war collapsed in a church – hopeless and depressed. As he lay there he saw a spider trying to climb the glass, yet constantly slipping to the floor. But each time it would fall it would try again, and again, and again, and again. The determination of that spider inspired the soldier to get up and march off to war once again.

It seems no matter how hard we try we continue to sin. We continue to be that monster formed more by sin than by love. Inevitably the situation can seem hopeless. Christ’s death however gives us hope.

There is something about the cross which is more than symbolic. Love is not just a nice feeling. It means something. When you love someone you change them. And as Christ loves us absolutely, so we should be changed absolutely.

When we are in the gutter the cross tells us that God’s hand is there waiting to lift us out of it. When we are ready to give up being disciplined in our holiness the cross urges us to go just a little bit further. When we think we are lost the Cross shows us there is a way, there is always a way, to follow God and be the person we were made to be.

The Cross reveals a greater reality than we can see with our eyes. It shows us an option: either we can reject Christ’s help in serving Him, or we can follow Him and learn that redemption has arrived not on the back of a war horse but on the back of a cross. It shows us another way. It shows us a kingdom way. And by showing us these things it empowers us to make this choice.

I’ve looked at the message of the cross here more than its power. But through the cross Christ does for us what we ourselves can never do – He pays our ransom and washes away our sin (expiation). The fact that God’s option exists is revealed in the fact that He died to make it happen.

If we are going to reach the lost without selling them a commodity I believe our message must focus on the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. It is a story, which through its own power, transforms people’s lives.

I have an evangelical background. As such my zeal to ‘change the world’ always brings me back to conversion, or salvation, or my zeal to change a world. But as I have grown more committed and have come to understand the real cost (and joy) of following Christ I have become increasingly uncomfortable with a gospel message and presentation that, I feel, sells out on God.

I feel like we are coming to a generation of people addicted to comfort and security, who are literally dead on the inside for all their self serving motivations, and saying “Hey, for only a little faith you can spend eternity in this really cool place called heaven, and if you sign up now we’ll be sure to make your church experience as unchallenging yet entertaining as possible.” And whilst it is true (for us salvation is cheep and it is the best ‘product’ in the world) there is a greater truth: Your salvation – your relationship with God, your healing, your transformation into Christ-likeness – is the most expensive and difficult and disciplined thing you’ll ever work for. Your life after death will cost you your life before death.

How do you get people to sign up to that?

How do you preach a gospel that goes something like this: You must stop trying to save yourself, to make yourself the god of your life, to find meaning in fruitless things, to compete with your brothers and sisters over trivial things, to seek comfort and security over love or courage. Because you’ll never find fulfillment in anything when your first motivation is yourself, and you hardly know what you want anyway. Instead there’s this guy from Nazareth, an outcast, who was killed on a Roman torture device, who said dangerous things about giving all our money to the poor, praying for our enemies, becoming last to be first, and taking up our cross so we can join in His suffering. And, despite it being completely backwards, following this guy (the son of God no less) is the only way you’re going to get the satisfaction (the salvation) you’ve been looking for all along. He died to make this possible. But you can’t make that your primary motivation – because even if (impossible as it is) following Christ does not lead to the fulfillment and redemption of your life it is still the right thing to do…

When it comes down to it, that is the gospel. But it doesn’t sound too appealing. So we want to tone it down and split it into a few points and make it about us getting something from God as opposed to giving back to God what we stole to begin with. Jesus never lowered the bar like that. He told a rich guy he had to give away all he had and when he turned to leave Jesus didn’t run after Him confessing it was just an allegory. And if you think James is big on the action-accompanies-faith thing you should read 1 John: “No one who lives in him [Christ] keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.” (3:6) The early Christians had the bar so high we protestants would call them heretics! The bible seems to make it clear enough that discipleship is a part of salvation, not an optional extra that comes after it.

My question is: how do we effectively ‘evangelise’ that?

I have a collection of haphazard thoughts that I have been collecting but certainly nothing even approaching anything the 3-point-plan which I would love to have (even if I know it doesn’t exist). That makes things challenging, but challenge is what moves us forward. I’ll be posting more of those ideas as I have time (much sooner that the time since my last post I promise!)

But in the mean time how have you presented the gospel in a way that lead to long term meaningful transformation as opposed to offering just another spiritual good? There are people who get ‘born again’ every year yet never change, and there are people who see God and never look away again. How have you worked to see the later kind?

Missiology is very much where theo.ogy meets our methodology. We believe in these doctrines, now how does our belief in them influence the way we act. Where does God’s mission meet the Church’s mission and our personal mission? It is both a subset of ecclesiology and a branch of theology in its own right.

Let’s call it theology getting its hands dirty.

Foundationalist Exclusivism

The paradigm which I have named “Foundationalist Exclusivism” (or “Evangelism”) is I think the primary lens by which the church has viewed missiology since enlightenment times. It’s based on two ideas:

1. Forundationalism is a theory in epistemology (the study of knowledge) that hold beliefs are justified because of basic premises or because they are justified by other justified beliefs. Basically foundationalism holds that many beliefs and practises are “set in stone” and upon this foundation of knowledge we slowly build more knowledge.

2. Exclusivism is the belief that people can be categorised into “saved” and “unsaved” people based on the fulfilment of some criteria (faith, baptism, works, etc)

Essentially the Foundationalist Exclusivism paradigm holds that every person is in one of two mutually exclusive groups: “Unsaved” and “Saved”. Your position in one of these categorisations predetermines your eternal destination. Essentially, we categorise people by where they are going to end up. We then suggest that there exists a transitionary action that changes us from unsaved to saved (or vice versa).

Now foundationalism is what creates this barrier between the saved and unsaved. Essentially foundationalism states that “Saved people believe and do these things…” Every saved person is expected to adhere to foundational practises and beliefs. Have you ever heard someone say that you need to believe in young earth, six day creationism to be Christian? That is a foundationalist position. Foundationalism creates the wall, the standard, between saved and unsaved people. It determines the requirements for the transition. What doctrines one has to have faith in for example.

According to Foundationalist Exclusivism the primary mission of the church is to get as many people into the “saved” category as possible. How? By getting as many people to fulfil the requirements for the transition as possible – Get as many people to pray the sinner’s prayer as possible, Get as many people baptised as possible, Get as many people convinced as possible. Foundational Exclusivism usually says nothing of the character of saved and unsaved people except that “saved people have fulfilled the requirement of x and unsaved people have not”.

Missional

The Missional paradigm is a new way of approaching missiology. The Missional Paradigm holds that God’s primary mission is not to make people saved, but to make people like Christ. Essentially in the Missional paradigm the goal is not justification, it is sanctification. This is significant because sanctification is a goal that is not achievable in this life time. So Missional Christians do not believe the “transitionary requirement” has ever been fulfilled but is constantly in the process of fulfilment.

In the Missional Paradigm no one has ever “made it”. Our eternal destination is not something which has been predetermined because of some requirement we have met (not all Missional people need agree with this). Rather we just believe that God has our best interests at heart and will do what is right when we die whilst we get on to the task of being “Christlike”. The primary goal is transformation (where as in the Foundational Exclusivism paradigm it is an option). The sinners prayer, faith, baptism, and works are all fuel for (and the continuing results of) transformation they are not the goal.

In the Missional Paradigm evangelism is not about inviting people to become “saved”. It is about inviting people to join with us in a new way of life. Stanley Hauerwas puts it best: “The work of Jesus was not a new set of ideals or principals for reforming or even revolutionizing society, but the establishment of a new community, a people that embodied forgiveness, sharing and self sacrificing love in its rituals and disciple. In that sense, the visible church is not to be the bearer of Christ’s message; but to be the message.”

The great commission reads as follows: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Mathew 28:18-20) What’s interesting here is that the only actual command in this passage is “make disciples”. In the original Greek “go”, “baptise”, and “teach” are all adverbs – they describe the method by which we are to make disciples.

In Judaism a disciple was someone who has dedicated themself to becoming like a rabbi. So Jesus was essentially saying “make everybody be like me”. The great commission is not about getting people saved, it is about making people Christlike.

Effects of the Paradigm

The effects of your paradigm on your actions are so huge they are hard to summarise. But consider the following:

1. It changes the way we act as Christians

2. It changes the way we evangelise

3. It changes the way we do church

4. It changes the way we approach soteriology

5. It changes the way we approach social action

Exclusivism encompass two different yet highly coupled ideas. Firstly, that salvation is by Christ alone (as understood by Christendom) and Secondly, that there exists mutually exclusive categorizations between those that are saved and those that are not. Most denominations are exclusive and some are so exclusive they do not believe people from other denominations within Christianity are saved.

There are two events that greatly shake by belief in exclusivism. Firstly, when a person dies who has had no chance to hear the good news. Secondly, when I encounter a non-Christian who shows more fruit of the spirit than most Christians. I find it very difficult to believe in a God who sends very good people to hell because they never heard the gospel (or because the gospel was misrepresented). My mind is even more ravaged by the thought that God creates people who He knows are going to go to hell. Unfortunately for me the alternatives are not much better.

Alternatives

Universalism – The belief that there is no hell, or that hell is temporary. Everyone ends up going to heaven. (Opt-out is a newer theology found in “A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity” by Spencer Burke in which people are born saved but may choose to “opt-out” of God’s grace)

Pluralism – The belief that all religions are equal and valid paths to salvation. People who fail to meet the standard for salvation for at least one religion still end up in hell.

Inclusivism – The belief that salvation is by Christ alone, but that people do not need to have a Christian understanding of Christ to be saved. God only expects people to comply with what has been revealed to them.

If we take Jesus’ words “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) at face value we can eliminate universalism and pluralism as plausible alternatives. Inclusivism still seems possible, but the strong terms surrounding many salvation passages and Paul’s questions in Romans 10:14-15 (How can they believe unless someone tells them?) makes this appear unlikely.

I much prefer these alternatives. I would love it if no one had to face the horrors of hell, but unfortunately this seems unlikely. Thus I must learn to understand exclusivism in light of an all-powerful, all-loving God.

Unanswerable Questions

It seems to me the greatest injustice that an all-loving, all-powerful God would allow people to suffer so dreadfully. People who do not grasp the depth of this tragedy usually underestimate God. There is nothing God cannot do. God can create beings with free will who will not disobey Him. To suggest otherwise is to make God subject to laws He created and set them up as higher than Him. God can also intervene to ensure that no one should perish. He did it with Paul and no one suggests Paul’s free will was taken away.

God intervened in such a way that it made Paul fall in love with Him. Paul still choose to love God, even though God had determined what Paul’s choice would be. Why did God save Paul (and similar events for other people have also been recorded) but not everyone else? God is willingly allowing people to go to hell. He has the capacity to stop it, but does not use it. Further more, God could have created Adam and Eve in such a way that they would not have succumb to the temptation to eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The same applies for Satan (not to mention there is the question of the origin of Satan’s temptation).

I have heard it suggested that God created (and predestined) evil so that He would be glorified. This makes a mockery of God’s love. It sets God up as a vain monster rather than a loving father – not worthy of worship or glory.

Thus I cannot reconcile an all-powerful, all-loving God with an exclusionist soteriology. Yet the bible calls on me to believe in both. This means that either a) the bible is wrong about God and/or the exclusivity of salvation, b) my interpretation of the bible is wrong, or c) I am unable to understand the complexity of the issues involved. Option c seems the most likely, thus I will file these issues under “mystery”. I can however deal with the practical elements of exclusivism.

Categorizations

I do not generally believe it is helpful to label one group of people “saved” and another “unsaved”. Where would one draw the line? At a certain amount of good works? At baptism? When you speak in tongues? Upon the recital of the “sinner’s prayer”? At faith? If so, in what exact doctrines because people disagree. If you are a Protestant do you consider Catholics saved? How about Jews or Jehovah Witnesses? If we cannot know to what exact degree salvation is exclusive it become practically impossible to draw a line at which someone joins the “saved” category.

Also, by labeling ourselves “saved” and outsiders “unsaved” we send the message that “I’m ok, you’re not”. This is clearly untrue. The reality is that “saved” people are not ok. We are still sinners and we are still broken. We are not saved. We are not saved from our sin because we still sin. We are not saved from injustice because we still perpetrate it and are victims of it. The only thing we have been saved from is the label of “non-Christian”.

It does not help to say that we have been saved from death and hell when we are still living in death and hell. Only Jesus could claim to be saved, for he was the only person to exist who was not in allegiance with the empire of this world. Furthermore, to suggest that we will be saved upon death because of our faith or our baptism and that others will not says that we have influenced God’s grace. His love is no longer unconditional. It can be earned by having the right beliefs or doing enough works.

The Gospel is not about our personal salvation. Religion is the work of man to reach God. The Gospel is the work of God to reach man. The question is not “what must one do to be saved?” the question is “what has God done to save me?” The great commission is not to go out and create saved people, it is to create disciples – followers of Christ. The gospel is an invitation to join God as He goes about the work of saving the world in a much greater sense than merely the after-life spiritual dimension. Our task is not to do the right stuff to “get saved” because we can’t do it. Our task is to take up our cross and follow Christ and trust Him to go about the work of getting us saved – because only He can do it.

Can we know we are saved? The question misses the point. It doesn’t matter if we know. If I serve God my entire life and go to hell than I still would have done the right thing. I do not follow Christ in order to ensure my salvation – to acquire favor in the afterlife. I follow Christ to help him save others (from more than just hell) and because He just happens to be God. There is still assurance of salvation, because, by grace, the spirit assures us. But this assurance is based on trust not something I have done to deserve being in the “saved” category.

I read recently (I cannot recall where) that the only difference we can determine is between people who act like they are saved and people who do not. Perhaps this is the great irony of God. There is an old trick where by if you act like you are x even though you are not, you eventually become x. Perhaps if we act like we are saved, even though we are not, eventually we become saved? Yet it is still the wrong motive for doing what is right.

I am a human first, a Christian second. I may always be 100% human, but often I am not very Christian. The only difference between me and a non-Christian is that to me Christ means something, to the non-Christian He doesn’t yet. We both still sin. We both struggle. We both have the same needs and desires. But I have hope that one day the my lover will save me and the non-Christian does not have that yet. However, until that day happens I have only faith in my salvation, I am not saved yet. It’s bedrock faith whereby I proclaim my salvation now (prophetically) knowing it will not actually be realized for some time. So until that time both me and my non-Christian friend are unsaved sinners in desperate need of grace.

My non-Christian friend does not need me to get them “saved”. They just need me to give them the hope and love that comes with knowing a certain friend of mine.

Alexandre Kalomiros in The River of Fire explains his idea of heaven and hell as follows. Judgement will be a time when every man and woman shall bow before God. God, who loves all equally, shall pour himself – His love, His presence, His essence, His fire – upon everyone equally. Those that respond to God with love will be consumed with joy, those that hate him will burn in their own malice. To the Eastern Orthodox God gives both Christians and Non-Christians the same thing (note that in the bible fire can represent both wrath and love) but our response determines whether we enjoy this or not. Hell is not the absence of God, but rather suffocation by His presence.

This makes a lot of sense to me. God, who loves us, should not suffer to keep Himself from us because of our rejection. It also deals with all of the “How could a loving God send us to hell?” questions. Heaven and Hell are both best described as states in our attitude towards God. A condition of being. Their positional metaphors are better understood as describing “where we are” in our relationship rather than a physical or spiritual location. Presumably one cannot change their response to God after that have been so completely exposed to Him.

This certainly changes our understanding of what it is to be “saved”. Ever since Anselm’s works western Christianity has understood judgement as being God sentencing us to our fates based on our actions in life. This is the result of Paul’s legal metaphors being taken out of their original 1st century context, being placed in our modern context, and then being stretched to their extremes. Salvation is a legal transaction where by we receive a pardon from judgement because judgement is understood as a bad thing. We are literally saved from the hands of God.

But if our eternal state is a reflection of our response to God than Judgement becomes a good thing. We want to be exposed to God in such an extreme manner. Salvation is not being pardoned from this judgement – which is to be looked forward to. Rather salvation is a process whereby we, who hate God, come to love Him (and we all do know God whether we know that or not). By this process we accept God’s grace and pardon ourselves from our own brokenness and hatred. We are saved not from God, but from the evil that rules and wishes to destroy our life.

At what point does one’s reaction to God turn from agony to joy? The question is the same as asking “at which point can I say I love someone?” There is no formula. No benchmark. No one tells you that you are in love. There is no action that proves it. No test or prayer. You just know. And although you can say “I love you now when I didn’t before” you can never explain at what exact moment you fell in love (though some people fall in love at first sight and this applies with God as well).

And what does such love do to a person whilst they are on earth? They are, in some regards, already in heaven and reflect the joy and peace that accompanies this fact – even in the face of the injustices in this world. They will end their adulteries with the debaucheries of this world and instead pick up their cross and follow Christ. Leading a counter cultural life where they forgive others and love even the most rejected.

However, whilst I love God I am still subject to the awful habits and addictions and brokenness which my old lover – sin – subjected me to. God, my husband, also becomes my healer working to undo the very deep damages evil has ravaged upon me. How can I be married to a physician and not also healed? In this way I am in heaven now, but also not yet. My relationship with God brings me joy, but all relationships take work, and admittedly all of the problems are on my part.

God however is not like a human. He is illusive and never speaks directly or acts the way we expect. Unlike a human, God cannot be understood. God is beyond comprehension, so once my mind creates something I can comprehend I am not worshiping God but rather an idol. My imagination is idolatrous. So I have a relationship with a God who I can nether contact like a human nor conceive. As such my journey is complicated and paradoxical. But that is alright, because the journey is the destination. The relationship, the walk, change itself, is the point. The goal is not to be changed, the goal is to be changing. Let us not hold ourselves up to any other standards.

So, in short, salvation is to be saved from the hell of unchanging rage into the heaven of dynamic love.

(Obviously this is more of a series of ideas than a serious unpacking of scripture. The bible uses a lot of analogies to explain salvation and I think the reason for this is that analogy is the only way we can understand salvation. Attempts at a systematic theology tend to fail on this account.)

“work out your salvation with fear and trembling” – Philippians 2:12

I was at a switchfoot concert the other week. These Christian events are the pinnacle of religious hype I have grown to hate so I treat them like entertainment just as I would a secular concert. During the night a high profile evangelist gave a highly emotional talk designed to get as many people as possible to go and get themselves “born again”. Hundreds responded, “praying the prayer”, and left the room to pick up some packs to kick start their faith. Heck, the speaker was so good I was ready to join them for the emotional high of it all.

But something really irks me. Most of those people will be in exactly the same place in a years time as they were that night.

When we reduce salvation to “praying the prayer”, or just “baptism”, or believing the right stuff we violate the Philippians 2:12 principal. To suggest that justification is an event that happens at a certain time and at a certain place is a mistiminer. Jesus listed a whole heap of things someone needed to do in order to “enter the kingdom of God” and you don’t get to that place in a day.

I think we have this idea that we pray a prayer and (bam!) we are at the end of our salvation journey. Sanctification, an entirely new journey, begins. I don’t think it works like that. Praying a prayer or giving your life to God is a stepping stone to salvation, it doesn’t mark the final destination. I think it is what happens when we take Paul’s legal metaphors (only one of the many metaphors used) to its extreme and we end up with this bargaining idea (which also creates the idea that we are saved from God). I give you faith you give me life, sign here, mark this date. But relationships don’t work like that. You don’t meet a girl and become her husband the next day.

Now I know some people can genuinely pin point when they were “born again” and that’s great for them, but is that really the best way of theologically understanding what is happening? I can’t pin point a date. Sure, there are times in my life where God became more real but I never responded to an alter call or prayed the prayer. I hate it when people try to get you to write a testimony and it is suppose to go something like this: “My life sucked, I got saved, my life got better”. My testimony is closer to this: “My life was fine, as I grew up I slowly and confusingly got to know God better and as I have things have only gotten more and more difficult, and doubtful, and challenging, and painful. And I have had to come to terms with verses that tell me to ‘take up my cross’ and ‘give everything I own to the poor’ whilst fighting against increased temptation, and persecution, and such.” (Before you start to worry I am over-exaggerating. I am a happy guy but Christianity is not meant to be comfortable).

I don’t think many people would “pray the prayer” if I told them that.

There is part of me that absolutely knows that I am “saved” despite all my failings. I can’t explain that theologically. All I can say is that after years of striving for God, I belong in His arms. It takes more than a prayer to be able to say that.

Technorati Tags: Christian , Religion , Salvation

(From Emerging Grace)

“There are two freedoms – the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.” - Charles Kingsley

There is a common idea in Christianity that God respects our freedom so much that He is willing to allow our mistakes to lead us to eternal torture in hell. According to this view we consciously choose to say no to God and God responds by leaving us to our own devices. After we die He judges us and sends us to hell for the choices He allowed us to make. The consequences are our fault and are just. God is not required to intervene on our behalf whilst maintaining the moral high ground. Freedom from sin is understood as forgiveness from sin and it’s consequence of hell (i.e. freedom from sin = a ticket into heaven). Much of this is true but it misses the point.

The Nature of Sin

No one in their right mind chooses to sin. When we sin we should think of ourselves as being mentally disabled. If we truly know the consequences and exact details of what we are doing we would never choose to do it. If we knew truth we would always choose God. Always. Sin relies on deception to strike and thus eliminates free will in order to cause you to stumble (i.e. you have to lose your freedom before you sin; it is not something you lose after you sin when you are subject to the consequences you can no longer avoid).

Take Adam and Eve. When they ate the apple they were choosing to “become like God”. They were presented with a choice for something that looked really good. Instead they got misery. Who in their right mind would eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil if they fully knew (and believed) the consequences? Adam and Eve got something different to what they choose – their freedom was overruled. Imagine if you walked to a bakery and ordered a sausage roll but always got a meat pie. You would not really be choosing. Freedom only exists when we get what we choose. Adam and Eve did not get what they choose. They did not have freedom (although they are still guilty for their lack of belief and self-centred thinking).

Sin always works this way. It works by polluting our vision, confusing the data, and making a bad choice look like a good one. When you sin you almost always justify it in your mind thinking it would satisfy you in some way – but in fact you have been fooled by a lie! The results are never as good as righteousness and the only reason you ever “chose” it is because you were deceived into thinking it was the better choice. You did not get what you choose. Between a choice of A and B you chose B but got C. You never asked for C, you wanted B (because it genuinely looked better than A), but C was forced upon you against your free will.

Sin is not a wrong choice between good and bad. Rather it is a choice between good and bad masquerading as “better”. Sin itself is a symptom of the evil in this world. Evil can be understood as a disease transmitted by sin (like flu is transmitted by its symptom of sneezing). We are born into this world filled with this disease, someone inevitably wrongs us, and this sin against us tarnishes what was supposed to be a perfect creation. In our ruined state we place ourselves before God, becoming or “catching” evil ourselves, and soon begin to spread it to others with our selfish sins against them. The end result is a world full of ruined people who, because they are ruined, strike out against one another ruining each other even further.

This is hardly what you would call freedom, and a God who sat back and allowed it all to happen whilst this trap forced us into hell (which we didn’t want) would not be respecting our free will. Sin is hardly what you would call a “choice” although our ability to choose is what allows it. If God truly respects our free will he would be compelled to intervene in this cycle, not dispassionately sit back and allow it to continue.

Justice

It’s a sad thing to see a Christian who stuffs up and then cowers as they expect God to begin punishing them for their mistake. Such a view is based on a western understanding of Justice. Justice as executed in our court systems is punishment for doing something wrong. It is directly opposed to mercy which holds back punishment. Thus God is perceived as a being whose senses of Justice and Mercy contradict each other. The end result is a God who appears to have unconditional wrath (everyone is sent to hell) except where mitigated by his conditional love (based on our faith).

Biblical justice is closer to what we would call reconciliation (Isaiah 1:17, 30:18, Jeremiah 21:12, Zechariah 7:9, Matthew 12:18-21, Luke 4:18-19). It is correcting a wrong not via punishment but through the healing power of grace. It is about undoing the damage done by evil in this world. Violence cannot do this. It only inflicts more damage where damage has already been done. Two wrongs never make a right. Redemptive violence is a myth.

Now there are places in the bible where God displays his wrath and punishes people. This however is a preventative measure, not a redemptive one. When a child breaks something and his parents punish him it is not so that what he has broken can be repaired, rather it is so that he does not do it again. God’s wrath works the same way. It is the desperate attempt of a father to teach his children not to run onto the road during peak hour. It is conditional and it is disciplinary (not redemptive). After a child has been hit by a car and is in a coma there is little point in punishing him for it, the time for healing has come.

In the case of humanity that healing comes through love, and not just any love, but the unconditional, infinite love only found in a relationship with God. It is through this love that our ruined state can be repaired, and the symptoms of it will begin to desist. This is why relationship must be made central to Christian theology: God does not need to forgive us of our sins so that we can have a relationship with Him; rather it is through our relationship with Him that we are cleansed of our sins. Jesus did not need people to be clean to eat with them. The idea that we are cleansed of our sins and can thus get into heaven at salvation and then after this, we can begin to have a relationship with Christ makes the relationship optional (we can get into heaven before we have the relationship). If we understand the cleansing of our sins as something that happens through that relationship it becomes vital for salvation.

Salvation

Viewing salvation as a mere key to heaven however greatly minimises it. He we are trapped in a cage: broken, ruined, diseased humans. God, whose love stirs in him a longing for justice, longs for our freedom, our repairing, our healing, and our curing. He cannot sit back and let sin ensnare and drag his creation into hell. So He sent His own son to die for us. Did he need Jesus to die in order to declare us righteous? Did he need a scapegoat to satisfy his wrath or some law he was bound by? No, but we needed Him to die. We needed to know that we were loved enough for Him to die. We needed to know that we were beautiful under all our scars. We needed to know that in our discussing state someone cared so much to go through so much pain. And so as Jesus was struck by a blow designed to put His message of love out of action what really happened is that God turned this own blow against the devil, amplifying this message of love a hundred fold, and defeating evil once and for all (or put differently: whilst on earth Jesus teaches a message of love, the devil tries to stop it, but by Jesus’ death He pays our ‘ransom’ and makes the greatest statement of love of all).

That message – that we are loved – changes us. It begins the healing process. It acts as a cure. But Jesus work is not done yet. In his resurrection we find hope. We find hope that a dead man (like we are) can find life. We have hope that a man wrapped in our chains of sin can find freedom. That a man locked in hell can escape – just as we are trapped in hell even whilst alive. We know we no longer need to try to escape these chains on our own because someone is coming to us with the key. That key is grace, and that grace is experienced the only way it can be – in our relationship with Him.

The gospel is not the story of God giving us a choice to avoid punishment in hell whilst He sits back and hopes we make it. The gospel is the story of God coming to us whilst we are bound in chains we cannot escape and tearing them from us before it is too late. It is the story of God giving us freedom, not expecting us to act with a “free will” that we do not have. As God woos us we fall in love with Him. As we fall in love with Him we begin to place Him first – the criteria upon which we base judgements begin to change. As that criterion becomes love filled we begin to sin less (because sin no longer looks like a good choice). As we sin less we contribute less to the mess this world is in and instead begin to get to work helping God to save it.

That is freedom – not choosing something that we want to do based on criteria ruined by our selfishness, but choosing what we ought to do based upon love found in Christ. Freedom is a good thing, not something that causes us to sin, but something that causes us to be righteous. Something found in relationship. The result of redemption. The purpose of salvation.

(Disclaimer: I am aware that the thoughts in this post are not complete and need some refining. It is a base upon which to think about a relational theology and not the final product. I encourage you to build upon this base just as I have built upon the base built at The Rebel God and by authors such as Donald Miller and even John Eldredge. As my fellow blogger says, “Theology is something that should be done in community.”)