Wrestling with Salvation

“Sin is our only hope" – hope for what? To what? To salvation? But what does that mean? This worldly? Other worldly? Something else entirely? Just exactly what does it mean to be saved?

Traditional understandings of salvation are that we are saved from sin, death and evil. There has always been, though, a tension in the theology of the church around the understanding of salvation. You can hear the tension in the dialogue between Martha and Jesus as he comes to mourn for his friend, Lazarus. She says to him, “Lord, if you had been here…” Jesus responds, “Your brother will rise again.” Maybe a bit confused by this exchange, Martha assures Jesus that she knows he will rise again on the last day, on that history is consummated and the reign of God is fully present throughout creation. But Jesus continues, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:21-26)

Is salvation resurrection on the last day, that day when history is consummated? Or, is it at the point of our own deaths that we experience resurrection and enjoyment of an eternal abode in God? Does salvation have to do with this world? Is it otherworldly? Is it about heaven?

We often times assume that everyone knows what we mean when we say salvation. But I’ve heard enough conversation around the subject among God’s faithful to know that it is a mistake to assume everyone has the same meaning in mind when they use the word - salvation.

Perhaps that surprises you. But it has really been that way since the first writers of the books we call scripture put a stylus to skin or parchment. Salvation comes in the Hebrew Bible as God promises a child to the barren Abraham and Sarah and then as God remembers God’s covenant and liberates the people from slavery in Egypt and from the perspective of Isaiah when God “gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless” (40:29) and for Ezekiel it is described as resurrection when God addresses the problem of the Babylonian exile.

The gospels describe Jesus’ ministry as preaching the Good News of the reign of God; or described a little differently, Jesus preached about God’s consummation of history. But even in the gospels and all of the New Testament, there is no uniform understanding of salvation. Sometimes, Jesus says the reign of God is almost here. He even encourages the disciples to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom. But other times, Jesus says the reign of God is already present and among us, “Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it” (Matt 13:16). The tension inherit in the teaching of Jesus is a problem for the church. Even the author of 2 Peter recognizes it, he sees that the kingdom has not fully arrived and he wants to know what’s up (cf. 3:4). This tension has not disappeared for the church.

I suspect your definitions and understandings would testify to still a variety of beliefs around this topic. You are not alone. Throughout the centuries, the church has argued, sometimes passionately, over these issues. Is salvation about this world or is it about getting to heaven? Is the reign of God present or yet to be?

We want and need an answer to these questions. But how do we find it? In searching for the answer, I am struck by the concept of salvation in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. In the Hebrew Bible, salvation can describe God’s activity to deliver, bring to safety, buy back, restore, vindicate, or rescue the people and individuals. In the New Testament, salvation can describe God or Jesus’ activity to protect from harm, rescue, heal, liberate, or give life. These, I believe, in both testaments, point to salvation as being about a new relationship with God that is neither exclusively in this world or the next. The issue is not either/or. It is not that salvation is either this worldly or other worldly. Rather, salvation is about this new relationship with God in the here and now and at the end of life and history. Salvation is both/and – it is about both this world and the next. Because to live in one way and not the other robs both of their significance.

If our concern is only for ultimate salvation, at our own deaths or the end of history, it cannot ignore the liberation of all people and all of nature from oppression. For if we fail to love our neighbor, feed the hungry, and give drink to the thirsty, then we give up the gospel. If we ignore our neighbors, the hungry, the thirsty, or all of creation itself, then we deny the very ones to whom Jesus went. God seeks to reconcile all of creation to Godself and will never cease seeking this reconciliation. We must not stop seeking it either.

While we cannot ignore the liberation from oppression for this world, it is equally a mistake to limit salvation to only such liberation. Disciple theologian, Clark Williamson, suggests there are 3 reasons that such an understanding of salvation is inadequate. First he suggests, if salvation only is about the liberation of this world from oppression, then those who die before such liberation are not saved but damned (Way of Blessing 311). Ten years ago as I walked into the Children’s memorial at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Israel, and I saw the countless symbols of children killed by the Nazis, the idea that salvation is only this worldly turned to ash in my mouth. Second, all we have to do is look at human history and see that “we will never arrive at a utopian state of total liberation” (Way 311). So often as one group is liberated from oppression the oppressed become the oppressors. Finally, for those who work so diligently for the liberation of this world, without any sense of God’s activity to ultimately redeem, will run out of gas with no means to refill the tank. Eventually, the size of the task and repeated failures will lead to resignation and perhaps disillusionment (Way 312).

Salvation describes God’s desire and activity to reconcile all creatures and nature with God, themselves, and one another (Way 306). The means of salvation is God’s presence with us. To know salvation is to participate in this relationship with God in the here and now as well as eternally. When we speak of the cross putting an end to the old world and beginning a new world, we are speaking of this new relationship. It is symbolized in our baptism. We go down into the water and die with Christ and rise to new life.

Following Christ is living this life. My sense of that and the experiences of my own faith journey, however, indicate that this is more easily described than it is lived. We make decisions that take us off this path and there are forces that act upon us that lead us from the path of following Christ. These choices and these forces are what we call sin in the Christian tradition.